Agrotrade’s agricultural holdings in Sumy and Chernihiv regions have begun harvesting corn from more than 13,000 hectares, with 5% of the area already threshed, according to its press service on Facebook.
The agricultural holding specified that the fields of Chernihiv region are currently showing the best yield — 114% of the planned indicators.
“At the moment, good yields are observed thanks to the correct selection of hybrids for the conditions of the year, timely feeding, and care for the crops. The high-quality work of modern equipment during sowing was also of great importance. For this, we used our new Fendt Momentum seeders with a liquid fertilizer application system,” said Gennady Maly, chief agronomist at Agrotrade, in a press release.
The structural divisions of the agricultural holding are harvesting during periods without precipitation. The campaign is planned to be completed by mid-November, according to the report.
The Agrotrade Group of Companies is a vertically integrated holding company with a full agro-industrial cycle (production, processing, storage, and trade in agricultural products). It cultivates more than 70,000 hectares of land. Its main crops are sunflower, corn, winter wheat, soybeans, and rapeseed. It has its own network of elevators with a one-time 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).
The founder of Agrotrade is Vsevolod Kozhemyako.
Ukraine has the potential to expand bilateral agricultural trade with the US, particularly in the export of meat, eggs, corn, and queen bees, according to the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection following a working visit to the US by the agency’s head, Serhiy Tkachuk.
The State Service noted that during the visit, Tkachuk held meetings with representatives of three departments of the US Department of Agriculture.
Together with the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), the parties discussed increasing bilateral trade in agricultural products. Ukraine has the potential to replace Russian and Chinese products on the American market, the agency assured. Particular attention was paid to opening the US market for Ukrainian poultry and eggs.
Negotiations with the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) focused on access to the US market for Ukrainian poultry meat and eggs. The State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection has already provided all the necessary information and expressed its readiness to undergo inspections, including online. This practice has been successfully applied in cooperation with the United Kingdom, Canada, and the EU.
The Ukrainian side emphasized the importance of moving forward with applications for the export of pork and beef, and the FSIS confirmed its readiness to begin technical consultations.
The meeting with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) was devoted to the epizootic situation, the procedure for assessing the status of diseases, and inspections.
In addition, the meetings discussed the prospects for exporting Ukrainian corn and queen bees. The American side positively assessed the dynamics regarding corn and promised to consider the issue of bees in the near future.
“These dialogues confirm that even in times of war, the Ukrainian agricultural sector remains a reliable and promising partner. We feel the support of our American colleagues and their willingness to move forward in opening up new opportunities for Ukraine,” concluded the head of the State Food and Consumer Service.
One of Ukraine’s largest grain market operators, Nibulon, has begun harvesting late grain crops in the Cherkasy and Khmelnytsky regions, according to a Facebook post by the grain trader’s press service.
According to the report, the Chyhyryn branch in the Cherkasy region, where corn is harvested on an area of 9,500 hectares, was the first to start harvesting late grain crops in the 2025 season.
“Despite the difficult weather conditions during the growing season, corn in this region yielded 7 tons per hectare. The total planned gross corn harvest for the holding is 180,000 tons. The total area under this crop this year is 22,577 hectares. As of today, the first 2,000 hectares have been threshed. Eight combines and 70 grain trucks are involved in the corn harvest,” the agricultural holding said.
In addition, the soybean harvest has begun in the Khmilnytskyi and Kamianets-Podilskyi clusters. The first 500 hectares have been threshed with a yield of 3.2 tons. In total, they have 9,600 hectares to harvest. Twelve combines and 40 grain trucks are working on threshing this crop.
Immediately after harvesting, Nibulon will cultivate the soil for sowing in 2026. The priority is strip-till and deep loosening.
“Overall, 2025 has been a difficult year for agriculture. This year’s weather, in particular the lack of productive rainfall in the central and especially southern regions of Ukraine, did not contribute to record harvests. Since the beginning of the year, only 220 mm of precipitation has been recorded in the Chyhyryn area, and it should be noted that a significant part of it was not productive and was not effective in fully meeting the moisture needs of corn, especially at critical stages of plant development,” the agricultural holding noted.
Nibulon was able to achieve a stable harvest despite the moisture deficit by implementing a set of resource-saving agricultural technologies, including economical soil cultivation, adherence to early sowing dates, and the competent selection of corn hybrids with FAO 220–250, which are highly drought-resistant and release moisture quickly during ripening.
Nibulon LLC was established in 1991. Before the Russian military invasion, the grain trader had 27 transshipment terminals and complexes for receiving agricultural crops, a capacity for one-time storage of 2.25 million tons of agricultural products, a fleet of 83 vessels (including 23 tugboats), and owned the Mykolaiv Shipyard.
Before the war, Nibulon cultivated 82,000 hectares of land in 12 regions of Ukraine and exported agricultural products to more than 70 countries around the world. In 2021, the grain trader exported a record 5.64 million tons of agricultural products and supplied record volumes to foreign markets in August (0.7 million tons), in the fourth quarter (1.88 million tons), and in the second half of the year (3.71 million tons).
The grain trader is currently operating at 32% of its capacity, has created a special unit for demining agricultural land, and has been forced to move its central office from Mykolaiv to Kyiv.
The corn market is gradually shifting its focus to the new harvest, last year’s grain has almost lost its liquidity, and there are practically no real deals with it, At the same time, Europe is showing steady interest in
Ukrainian products, and demand from importers remains high, according to the analytical cooperative “Pusk,” created within the framework of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council (VAR).
“The new corn harvest is valued on the market in a wide range of $197-203 per ton. Some traders are already offering higher prices — $205-206 on a CPT-port basis with deliveries in October-November. Demand from importers is active, particularly from Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, with deliveries in November-December. The EU is facing serious yield problems. In France, the first threshing showed only 3-4 tons/ha. Other corn producers — Romania, Hungary, and Poland — are facing similar difficulties, forcing the EU to increase imports from the projected 18-19 million tons to 22-23 million tons, and Ukraine looks to be a key supplier here,” analysts noted.
According to their information, Ukrainian exporters have already sold about 4 million tons of the new harvest to importers with deliveries in November-December. However, there may be a shortage on the market due to weather conditions, which will further stimulate the growth of purchase prices.
“Traders may have to raise prices, but no significant growth is expected. One of the determining factors will be the progress of the harvesting campaign. Due to the delay in vegetation, the first significant batches of corn from the center and north will arrive only in the second half of October. We can predict indicative prices of $220 CPT port in October. However, during this period, American corn will actively enter the market. Its volume will significantly exceed demand, which will put serious pressure on prices in October-December. Therefore, in November-January, the market is likely to stabilize at $220-230 CPT port per ton, which is in line with seasonal patterns,” Pusk concluded.
The sales rates in the season-2024 were significantly higher compared to the previous year, especially for corn and sunflower, Agrohub reported based on the results of two waves of research on the efficiency and effectiveness of growing the main crops of the season-2024.
“At the time of the first wave of the study (end of January 2025), the percentage of sales of these crops was more than 60%, while at the end of January 2024, only 25% of corn and 27% of sunflower were sold,” the researchers said.
According to the study, sunflower was sold almost completely, which was due to a decrease in its share in the crop structure and high demand from the processing industry, as well as an increase in the number of oil extraction plants. For export-oriented crops, a stable sea export corridor plays an important role in shaping the sales rate: despite the threats and shelling of port infrastructure, it remained the most effective channel for selling products, analysts say.
The positive price situation was the main factor behind the growth of profitability of agricultural production in 2024, the report says. Thus, the break-even point decreased in many crops, while the profitability indicators increased. According to the results of the season-2024, the average forecast EBITDA for such crops as winter wheat, rapeseed and barley, as well as sunflower and corn amounted to $402 per 1 ha, which exceeded last year’s forecast level of $94 per 1 ha, i.e. 4.3 times, Agrohub calculated.
The analysts reminded that the forecast EBITDA is an expected estimate of profitability per hectare, calculated on the basis of current selling prices of already sold products and forecast prices for the residues.
Experts identify sunflower, corn, and rapeseed as the crops with the highest expected profitability in the 2025 season.
Despite the fact that in the 2024 season the yields of the studied crops decreased, the positive price dynamics during the year allowed not only to maintain but also to increase the profitability of crops. The main reason for the decrease in yields was drought and heat in the central, southern and eastern regions. Soil temperatures in summer reached above +60°C, and local rains failed to save the situation. In the West, where there is traditionally more rainfall, the yield decline was not significant, the researchers emphasized.
In addition, analysts drew attention to an interesting trend in the dynamics of costs, which has been observed for two seasons in a row. In particular, the costs of growing decreased slightly – within 8% for sunflower and rapeseed, mainly due to the reduction of fertilizer costs. At the same time, crop protection costs for sunflower and corn decreased by 11% due to dry weather conditions. Lower yields per hectare and dry weather conditions resulted in lower costs for transportation and grain processing, as the average moisture content of harvested corn in the 2024 season was 16.7% compared to 19.8% a year ago.
“The 2024 season illustrated how the agricultural business in Ukraine is learning to adapt to complex challenges: from war and unstable logistics to climate change and lack of resources. Increasing profitability and efficiency in such conditions is the result of flexibility, strategic planning and proper agricultural practices,” Oksana Bobrova, Head of Agrohub Benchmarking, summarized in her statement.
The study of the first and second waves of efficiency and effectiveness indicators of the main crops of the 2024 season, conducted by Agrohub, involved 14 largest Ukrainian agricultural holdings. The total area of analysis covered 1.7 million hectares in eight macro-regions of Ukraine.
The data on crop sales in the 2024 season are based on Agrohub’s research conducted in January-May 2025 among 83 field companies with a total area of 1.7 mln ha. The area of the studied crops: sunflower – 302.5 thou hectares, corn – 363.4 thou hectares, soybeans – 411.2 thou hectares, winter wheat – 403.5 thou hectares, winter rapeseed – 169.5 thou hectares and winter barley – 18 thou hectares.
AgriAcademy, a professional online education platform for Ukrainian agribusiness, has added two new free courses for farmers, created by experts from the Astarta-Kyiv agro-industrial holding. In June 2025, new training modules dedicated to the biological characteristics of corn and corn cultivation technologies became available on the AgriAcademy platform.
Course 1: “Corn. Biological characteristics of the crop”
The aim of the course is to provide farmers with a systematic understanding of:
Course 2: “Corn. Cultivation technology”
The aim of the course is to develop practical knowledge of agricultural technologies:
Both courses were developed by Pavlo Perkhalo, an experienced agronomist with over 10 years of practice at Astarta. Methodologist Svitlana Semenyuk and interactive materials designer Olga Veiler also contributed to the development of the courses.
Like all educational products on AgriAcademy, the new courses are free, available online at any time, and include a certificate upon successful completion.
As a reminder, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Astarta-Kyiv agricultural holding signed a partnership agreement in 2024 to develop distance learning for Ukrainian farmers.
The partnership provides for the creation of 25 online courses on the cultivation, storage, and processing of field crops.
In addition to the new training modules, previously created courses are also available on the platform: “Sunflower. Biological characteristics” and “Sunflower. Cultivation technology”.
AgriAcademy – training for Ukrainian farmers that is changing the industry
AgriAcademy is a free online training platform for agricultural workers and students of agricultural educational institutions, launched by the EBRD in December 2022 as part of its food security support program in Ukraine.
Its goal is to strengthen the competitiveness and sustainable development of agriculture, which has suffered significant losses due to the war.
Today, the platform offers 25 online courses — 300 hours of practical training in agronomy, management, technology, processing, storage, and more. Each course includes a knowledge test and certification for participants.
The platform is created and managed (including course development, study tours, etc.) with the support and funding of the EBRD, as well as:
We invite farmers to register on the platform and take practical courses at the link: https://agriacademy.org/courses-catalog
Astarta-Kyiv is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding in Ukraine, a public European company that conducts socially responsible business and produces food products for global markets.
The company was founded in 1993 by Viktor Ivanchyk, who remains its majority owner and CEO. Since 2006, Astarta’s shares have been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Main activities:
