Ukrainian Agro Connection, an agricultural service cooperative (ASC) founded by the owner of A.G.R. Group owner Misak Khidiryan, is working to create a water user organization (WUO) in the Nikolayev region.
The project is planned to be implemented on a part of Inguletskaya irrigation system in Mykolaiv region, the Chairman of the cooperative Bogdan Kupriyanov told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, OVP as a legal entity is created by owners or users of agricultural land for the use and maintenance of engineering infrastructure of state land reclamation systems. The purpose of its creation is to provide irrigation services for land plots in the WUA service area.
In addition, the establishment of the WUA on the Inguletskaya irrigation system as one of the largest irrigation systems in Ukraine will contribute to strengthening the economy, ensuring food security of Ukraine and preventing the negative effects of climate change.
Kupriyanov specified that now there are three OVPs operating in Ukraine – on the territory of Trushevskaya (Cherkasy region), Suvorovskaya (Odessa region) and Kilchenskaya (Dnepropetrovsk region) irrigation systems. They were registered in December 2022. Thus, the OVP created by the Ukrainian Agro Connection cooperative may well become the largest in the country.
The chairman of the cooperative explained that one of the initiators of the OVP on the Inguletskiy irrigation system was A.G.R. Group LLC “Agro-Dilo” (Partizanske village, Mykolaiv oblast), which in cooperation with other land users will form an initiative group to address organizational issues related to the creation of the WUA. In addition, the initiative group will establish communications with allied water users, address technical, legal and financial issues of the organization.
Head of the Ukrainian Agro Connection noted in his comment that the day before members of the cooperative had met with Taras Kot, First Deputy Head of the State Agency for Land Reclamation and Fishery and got the agency’s support, discussed prospects and advantages of creating WUAs in the region as well as opportunities and ways to attract international investors and grants for development and operation of the land reclamation system.
He said that Inguletskaya irrigation system provides irrigation services on the territory of 121,5 thousand hectares, 103,3 thousand hectares of which are in Nikolaev region and 18,2 thousand hectares – in Kherson region. The system consists of two pumping stations with total capacity of 58.6 thousand kW and a capacity of 62.4 cubic meters of water per second. The total length of the main and distribution channels is 343 km, and there are 621 hydraulic structures.
Kupriyanov also underlined, that on the 10th of March this year the cooperative organizes the meeting of Ukrainian agrarians with government representatives, agribusiness experts and cooperators, in order to determine the main problems of the branch and to find the ways of their solution together.
As it was reported, on August, 27, 2022 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved the model statute of OVP that regulates the main aspects of such organizations, their legal status, the order of creation of such legal entities, OVP managing bodies and their authorities, main directions of OVP activity, the order of business activity and OVP termination. Already in December of the same year there were created 3 TCCs.
The cooperative Ukrainian Agro Connection was created at the end of 2021. It consists of farmers with a total land bank of 17 thousand hectares.
The members of the cooperative have an opportunity to sell general grain lots under direct export contracts, rent and lease agricultural machinery without disrupting the harvesting period. The cooperative helps them with the additional processing and storage of grain. It also gives them the opportunity to get discounts and preferential rates for the services of a network of partners, including banks, leasing and transport companies, suppliers of agricultural machinery, spare parts, fuel and fertilizers.
A.G.R. Agroholding. Group includes more than 20 companies. The main fields of its activities are trading of agricultural products, cultivation and storage of grain crops, and livestock breeding.
A.G.R. Group cultivates land in Poltava, Kiev, Chernigov, Nikolaev and Sumy regions. The grown products are sold on foreign markets.
The president of the holding and head of its supervisory board is businessman Misak Khidirian.
