Astarta, Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, plans to invest over $21 million in 2025 to upgrade its agricultural machinery fleet, the company’s press service reports.
According to the report, 150 units of new equipment have already been contracted, including heavy tractors, sprayers, self-propelled beet harvesters, sowing complexes, precision seeders, tillage machines and other equipment. Some of the equipment has been delivered to the agro-industrial holding’s production facilities and will be actively used in the spring field work. This will help increase the efficiency of agricultural production and optimize tillage and harvesting processes, as well as preserve soil health.
“The purchase of modern machinery is one of the elements of our decarbonization strategy, which involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions through more fuel-efficient equipment and the use of precision and regenerative farming practices. In order to reduce the impact of agricultural production on climate change, Astarta continues to scale up such practices, in particular, reducing the number and depth of tillage and increasing the area under cover crops,” said Andriy Zagorulko, Director of Crop Production, Logistics and Mechanization.
According to him, in 2024, the agricultural holding increased the area under no-till tillage and green manure. It has expanded the differentiated and local application of mineral fertilizers, which provides for their optimal use. In addition, local fertilization simultaneously with main tillage significantly reduces fuel consumption due to fewer technological operations.
“The updated machinery fleet will allow us to respond more quickly to changing weather conditions, be much more cost-effective and reduce dependence on third-party services,” the agricultural holding is convinced.
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding company operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It includes six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globyno (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex.
In 2023, the agricultural holding reduced its net profit by 5.0% to EUR 61.9 million, and its EBITDA decreased by 6.1% to EUR 145.77 million, while revenue increased by 21.3% to EUR 618.93 million.
