Agricultural holding Continental Farmers Group has put into operation a new warehouse for storing seed potatoes with a capacity of 3,000 tonnes of simultaneous storage in Batiatychi village (Lviv region), the project cost UAH 3.2 million, according to the company’s website.
“We got a yield of seed potatoes higher than the planned indicators – 36.2 tonnes per ha. Over the season, the gross yield of seed varieties exceeded 15,600 tonnes, so we needed additional storage capacity. We plan to further increase the volume of seed potatoes, respectively, there is a need to increase storage capacity,” Continental said, citing Head of Continental Potatoes Cluster Orest Kravchuk.
According to the agricultural holding, growing potatoes is a strategic direction of its activities.
Continental Farmers Group cultivates chips, seed and food varieties of potatoes in Lviv and Ternopil regions. The total area under potatoes amounted to 1,600 hectares in 2020, in the current year – 1,800 hectares, with the total land bank being 195,000 hectares.
The share of land plots cultivated by the 25 largest agricultural holdings is 9% (3.88 million hectares) of the total area of agricultural land in Ukraine, the investment company Concorde Capital (Kyiv) said during the presentation of the agricultural online platform KupiPai.
According to it, the land bank of Kernel agricultural holding (the main beneficiary is Andriy Verevsky) is 510,000 hectares, Ukrlandfarming (Oleh Bakhmatiuk) 475,000 hectares, MHP (Yuriy Kosiuk) 370,000 hectares, Agroprosperis (George Rohr and Maurice Tabasinik) 300,000 hectares, Astarta (Viktor Ivanchik) 243,000 hectares.
Continental Farmers cultivates 195,000 hectares, Epicentr Agro 160,000 hectares, Harveast 127,000 hectares, Ukrprominvest-Agro 120,000 hectares, Agroton and Agrain 110,000 hectares, Vitagro and Privat-agro 85,000 hectares.
Concorde Capital said the land bank TAS-Agro and Nibulon are 83,000 hectares each, Agrovisty, Svitanka and LNZ 80,000 hectares each, Agrotrade 71,000 hectares, Ristone Holdings 67,000 hectares, Grain Alliance 57,000 hectares, AgroGeneration 56,000 hectares.
The investment company said the total area of Ukraine is 60.3 million hectares, including 42,700 hectares are suitable for agriculture (of which 31.1 million hectares are privately owned, 10.4 million hectares are state-owned, 1.2 million hectares of another form of ownership). At the same time, 89% of the 31.1 million hectares of land plots in private ownership are private shares of citizens.
Concorde Capital said that according to data for 2019, 56% of land plots were cultivated by individual tenants, 29% were individual owners, 8% of the land was leased from the state, and 7% were not cultivated at all.
The majority (71.7%) of Ukrainians support the holding of a referendum banning the sale of agricultural land, 65.2% would support a ban on the sale of agricultural land, and 84.1% oppose the sale of Ukrainian agricultural land to foreigners, according to the results of a sociological research conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on June 22-29.
At the same time, 21% of respondents were against holding the corresponding referendum. Some 21.8% of respondents are against the ban on the sale of agricultural land, and 12.1% – the ban on the sale of agricultural land to foreigners.
The majority of respondents – 64% – believe that things in the country are going in the wrong direction. Some 20% of the respondents are optimistic about the direction of the movement of affairs, and another 16% found it difficult or refused to answer the question.
In the course of the study, 2,031 respondents from 107 settlements in all government-controlled regions of Ukraine were interviewed by the method of personal (“face-to-face”) interviews on a three-stage stochastic sample, representative of the population of Ukraine over 18 years old. The statistical error (with a probability of 0.95 and with a design effect of 1.5) does not exceed 3.3% for indicators close to 50%, and 1.5% for indicators close to 5%.
The Danish agricultural company Agromino with assets in Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Estonia reduced its net profit by 61.5% in 2020 compared to 2019, to EUR 1 million.
According to the annual report on the company’s website, its total revenue increased by 52.6% to EUR 56.6 million over 2020.
“On 15 July 2020, Agromino announced its plan to apply for delisting of Agromino’s shares. On 19 October 2020, Nasdaq Stockholm has approved such application. The last day of trading of Agromino’s shares was 30 October 2020,” according to the company’s press release.
The consolidated assets of the agricultural company as of December 31, 2020 were estimated at EUR 81 million (EUR 113.57 million in 2019).
“The Group’s strategy is to secure sufficient elevator capacity to enable the Group to dry the in-house produced grain after it has been harvested. Generally, the Group sells the maximum amount of wheat, corn, rapeseed, and soya to exports and sunflower on the local market,” the company said.
The total capacity of Agromino’s storage facilities increased from 121,000 tonnes in 2019 to 135,000 tonnes in 2020. The company cultivated 55,500 hectares in Ukraine in 2020, having harvested a total of 208,840 tonnes of crops, including 90,998 tonnes of wheat, 34,410 tonnes of sunflower, 64,392 tonnes of corn, 6,695 tonnes of rapeseed and 2,182 tonnes of soybeans.
According to the agricultural company, the financial results of 2020 include losses from exchange rate differences in the amount of EUR 3.3 million (in 2019 – EUR 1.8 million) associated with the depreciation of the Ukrainian hryvnia and the Russian ruble.
Agromino (formerly Trigon Agri) was established in 2006. It specializes in grain and dairy production, agricultural trade.
Its land bank in Ukraine is about 55,500 hectares. It cultivates land in Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytsky and Lviv regions.
A large Ukrainian manufacturer of agricultural machinery, JSC Plant Fregat (Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv region) ended 2020 with a net loss of UAH 470,000, while in 2019 it was UAH 26.5 million.
According to the financial statements of the enterprise, published on Tuesday in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, last year it increased its net income by 21.7%, to UAH 479.23 million.
According to the information of the plant, 53% of the total volume of manufactured products fell on for safety barriers roads and metal structures, 32% – the production of agricultural machinery for crop production, and other types of products accounted for 15%.
The enterprise exports road safety barriers to Germany, the Netherlands, China, the CIS countries; and agricultural machinery is mainly exported to the CIS countries.
Plant Fregat offers complex solutions in the field of irrigation systems, road barriers, metal structures for various purposes, as well as mechanical engineering products.
The agricultural machinery of the enterprise is included in the list of agricultural machinery, upon purchase of which 25% of its cost is compensated to the agrarians from the state budget.
This year, the plant also expects to expand the geography of deliveries of irrigation machines, in particular, an agreement has been signed for the supply of 50 machines to Uzbekistan, and deliveries are planned to Kyrgyzstan. Also, work is underway to establish cooperation with the farmers of Romania, Bulgaria and expand partnership with Poland.
Ukraine since the beginning of the 2020/2021 agricultural year (July-June) as of April 7, 2021 exported 36.07 million tonnes of cereals and legumes, which is 22.8% less than on the same date of the previous agri-year.
According to the information and analytical portal of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine, to date, 14.46 million tonnes of wheat, 16.90 million tonnes of corn, and 4.11 million tonnes of barley have been exported.
As of the indicated date, 97,400 tonnes of flour were also exported.
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, Ukraine exported 56.72 million tonnes of grain and leguminous crops in 2019/2020 agri-year.
