Ukraine may face a critical shortage of seasonal workers for raspberry harvest in 2026, the head of the Ukrainian Fruit and Vegetable Association (UFOA) Taras Bashtannik said.
According to him, without attracting foreign labor, the country will not be able to harvest raspberries and maintain its position as an exporter of this berry.
As noted in the publication, the area of raspberries in Ukraine in 2024 was about 5 thousand hectares, and the need for labor is estimated at about 15 pickers per 1 hectare. Thus, the season requires more than 70 thousand workers only for raspberries. Labor shortages are also affecting blueberry and strawberry farms, as well as apple orchards.
Volodymyr Gurzhyi, the head of USPA Fruit gardening company, said that in 2026 Ukrainian companies plan to import workers to orchards, including from Bangladesh and Nepal, similar to the practice in Serbia. At the same time, taking into account the growth of orchard areas, the additional need may amount to at least 100 thousand pickers.
The cancellation by the UK of all duties and quotas on products from Ukraine to support it in the face of a military invasion by the Russian Federation may allow Ukrainian farmers to increase their presence in the UK markets of poultry meat, walnuts, honey, cranberries, blueberries and peas.
The list of high-margin agricultural products that Ukraine could supply to the UK at a time when the export of its traditional agricultural raw materials is blocked by the aggressor country of the Russian Federation was published on the website of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club (UCAB) on Wednesday evening.
According to the results of 2021, agricultural products worth $553 million were exported from Ukraine to the UK, including sunflower oil (31% of export earnings), rapeseed (28%) and corn (24%). However, the supply of traditional agricultural crops in 2022 is difficult due to the naval blockade of Ukraine by Russian warships, as a result of which the country can potentially increase the export of a number of other agricultural products by road.
Ukrainian farmers, in particular, can focus their export efforts on the supply of poultry meat to the UK. The volume of its export in 2021 was 2,600 tonnes. The share of Ukraine of UK imports is 1%. Main competitors: the Netherlands, Poland, and Belgium.
The export of walnuts without shells is also promising. The volume of its export in 2021 was 0700 tonnes. The share of Ukraine of UK imports is 6%. Main competitors: the United States, Germany, and China.
According to the UCAB, Ukrainian farmers can increase honey exports to the UK (800 tonnes were delivered in 2021). The share of Ukraine of UK imports is 1%. Main competitors: China, Poland, and Mexico.
The export of cranberries and blueberries is also promising (supplies in 2021 – 200 tonnes). The share of Ukraine of UK imports is 0.3%. Main competitors: Spain, Peru, and Chile.
Ukraine exported 4,900 tonnes of peas to the UK in 2021, which amounted to 12% of the UK market in 2021. At the same time, Russia is Ukraine’s main competitor in this market, which, taking into account the economic sanctions imposed against it, adds an advantage to Ukrainian suppliers.
“Now the railways and seaports of neighboring countries are heavily loaded due to the export of grain crops, the volumes of which we have the largest. Therefore, to increase export earnings, we should focus on the export of goods that have a higher price with less weight and thus export by road,” UCAB cites a promising export model from its analyst Svitlana Lytvyn.
BERRIES, HONEY, PEAS, POULTRY, UK, UKRAINIAN FARMERS, WALNUTS
On Tuesday, July 9, at 10.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency will host a press conference entitled “Results of Exports of Fresh Fruits and Berries in 2018-2019. Forecast for Harvest (and Ukrainian Exports) for 2019-2020 Season.”
Participants: Dmytro Kroshka, the chairman of the Ukrainian Association of Agrarian Export, Volodymyr Hurzhiy, an expert for exports at First Ukrainian Apples Producers Aggregating Company USPA FRUIT, Oleksandr Yaschenko, the deputy director for research of the Institute of Horticulture, and Oleh Bosy, the agricultural technologist and managing partner of FruiTech (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration of journalists requires press accreditation.
AGRARIAN, BERRIES, EXPORT, EXPORTS, FORECAST, FRUITS, HARVEST, PRESS CONFERENCE, RESULTS
Ukraine in 2018 exported $229 million worth of fruits and berries, which is 17% more than a year earlier.
According to the Ukrsadprom association, the main products in this group were walnuts, which were delivered for $117 million, frozen fruits and berries for $78 million, apples and pears worth $15 million. Their total share in exports of horticultural products was 92%.
According to Ukrsadprom, in 2018 exports of walnuts rose by 32%, to 41,000 tonnes, frozen fruits by 14%, to 48,000 tonnes, apples and pears by 79%, to 43,000 tonnes.
Apples of Ukrainian production were exported to 60 countries, the leaders are Belarus (40%), Moldova (14%), and Sweden (9%).
The average price of domestic apples in foreign markets exceeded $350 per tonne, peeled walnuts $3,670 per tonne, and frozen berries $1,640 per tonne.
Traditionally, the main markets for Ukrainian exporters remained the EU countries, which buy about two-thirds of Ukrainian fruits and berries. The largest number of Ukrainian products was exported to Poland (for $39.8 million), Turkey ($20.4 million), France ($15.7 million), Belarus ($13.8 million), Greece ($12.9 million), the Netherlands ($11.2 million), and Italy ($10.2 million).
The inconsistency of Ukraine’s biosecurity measures with those of the importing countries hinders exports of fruits and berries from Ukraine, the Ukrsadprom association has stated.
According to a press release of the association, today, unlike the main exporting countries, Ukraine demonstrates sharp fluctuations in the volume of exports and instability of supplies.
“For comparison, in recent years exports of fruits and berries from Poland exceed $1 billion, while for Ukraine this volume reaches $150-200 million, so Ukraine exports six times less fruit and berry products than its European neighbor,” the report says.
The association is convinced that the coordination of mutual recognition of biosecurity measures will allow establishing trade, ensuring the social and economic development of Ukraine, stimulating the development of the horticulture and berry-growing sector in Ukraine and help attract investments in long-term agricultural and infrastructure projects.
To solve the problem of biosecurity measures inconsistency, Ukrsadprom appealed to First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv with the request to instruct his ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumers’ Rights Protection to coordinate the mutual recognition of biosecurity measures with the potential importing countries for exports of fruits, berries, as wells as planting stock.
T.B.Fruit, one of the largest processors of fruits and berries in Ukraine, plans in 2019-2020 to start the construction of the third plant for processing apples and berries in Poland with an estimated cost of more than EUR40 million. “We plan to build the third factory in Mazowieckie Voivodeship. We are now at the stage of designing production lines. There is already a ready-made construction project, a building permit has been obtained from state authorities. The planned start of construction is 2019-2020. The third plant will have a capacity of 3,000 tonnes of apples a day with the possibility of increasing up to 4,500 tonnes, and up to 700 tonnes of berries per day,” Director for Production at T.B.Fruit Oleh Mochaliuk told Interfax-Ukraine. Investments in the specified enterprise will roughly amount to more than EUR40 million.
According to Mochaliuk, T.B.Fruit owns two plants in Poland (the first was bought in 2010, the second one in 2012) with a total processing capacity of 3,000 tonnes of apples per day. In addition to apples, strawberry, raspberry, currants, cherry, aronia, red currants, gooseberry are processed at Polish plants. He said juice production and sales in the first half of 2018 decreased by 30-40% compared to the same period in 2017 due to a poor fruit harvest.
