Agrotrade agricultural holding has completed the sowing of industrial hemp, allocating 330 hectares in the Chernihiv region, which is 100 hectares more than a year earlier, the holding’s press service reported on Facebook on Wednesday.
The expansion of production areas in the agricultural holding was explained by the higher profitability of industrial hemp compared to other crops.
Agrotrade also drew attention to the agronomic specifics of hemp: it is sown later than the main crops, and the cultivation technology requires careful preparation.
“The company has been growing industrial hemp for three years in a row as part of a pilot project. This season is the final one. After the harvest, a decision will be made on the future of this line of business. Over the past three years, we have collected enough data to make an informed decision based on economic justification — whether to scale up this direction or close it,” explained Alexander Ovsyannik, director of the agro-industrial department at Agrotrade.
Agrotrade is a vertically integrated holding company with a full agricultural cycle (production, processing, storage, and trade of agricultural products). It cultivates over 70,000 hectares of land in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, and Kharkiv regions. Its main crops are sunflower, corn, winter wheat, soybeans, and rapeseed. It has its own network of elevators with a total storage capacity of 570,000 tons.
The group also produces hybrid seeds of corn, sunflower, barley, and winter wheat. In 2014, a seed plant with a capacity of 20,000 tons of seeds per year was built on the basis of the Kolos seed farm (Kharkiv region). In 2018, Agrotrade launched its own brand, Agroseeds.
The founder of Agrotrade is Vsevolod Kozhemyako.
