Astarta, Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, has begun its 2026 spring planting campaign, starting with sugar beet sowing in the Poltava region, the company announced on its Facebook page on Wednesday.
According to the report, 32,000 hectares have been allocated for sugar beets this year, which is 5.9% less than last year’s 34,000 hectares. At the same time, the area planted with sunflowers will decrease by 21%—to 23,000 hectares—and the area planted with winter wheat will decrease by 15%—to 39,000 hectares. The largest increases are planned for grain corn—by 43%, to 20,000 hectares—and winter rapeseed—by 36%, to 15,000 hectares. Soybean acreage remains unchanged at 56,000 hectares, as does the area under organic farming at 2,000 hectares.
“This year’s planting season is taking place under challenging conditions: increased moisture caused by abnormal frosts and frozen soil requires special attention from agronomists. They are adapting cultivation technologies and carefully monitoring field operations to improve production efficiency. Operational control is ensured by innovative solutions from AgriChain Machinery, AgriChain Scout, and AgriChain Barn. Combined with an updated fleet of equipment, this allows for a rapid response to weather and technological challenges, ensuring the stability and quality of the planting campaign,” said Vasyl Khmeliuk, Chief Operating Officer of Astarta, as quoted in the statement.
The holding noted that the final crop structure will be determined based on the results of the campaign. The use of digital ecosystems and an updated fleet of machinery allows the company to maintain a high pace of work despite challenging weather conditions.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It comprises six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220,000 hectares and dairy farms with 22,000 head of cattle, an oil extraction plant in Hlobine (Poltava region), seven grain elevators, and a biogas complex.
According to the results for 2025, Astarta reduced its total revenue from sales of key product categories by 15.6% compared to 2024—to UAH 21.05 billion, while physical sales volumes of its main products fell by 23.5%—to 1.21 million tons.
The Tekom Agro Group agricultural association (Odesa region) has started its 2026 spring sowing campaign with the sowing of red lentils, according to a post on its Facebook page on Tuesday.
It is noted that the first to start work were two farms of the association: Chornomorets LLC and Pivdenna Agricultural Company. In total, more than 1,000 hectares have been allocated for red lentils in four farms of the group.
“The temperature of +15°C allows us to start this year’s spring sowing. There is still enough moisture in the soil. In the Odessa region, in particular, where Chornomorets LLC operates, we are sowing lentils for the first time, and about 300 hectares are planned for this crop,” said Sergey Shtyrbulov, deputy head of production at Tekom Agro Group, whose words are quoted in the report.
According to the company, the Canadian variety Maxim (predecessor — winter wheat) was selected for sowing. The work is being carried out using John Deere sowing complexes with simultaneous fertilizer application.
Tekom Agro Group is a management company of an agricultural association in the Odesa region that operates according to a vertically integrated model. The holding’s land bank is over 26,000 hectares, on which the agricultural companies Yasni Zori, Pivdenna, Chornomorets, and Lyman operate. It specializes in growing winter wheat, barley, and rapeseed, as well as sunflowers and lentils.
The storage infrastructure consists of two elevators in the Podilskyi district — Podilskyi Grain Processing Enterprise and Chubivskyi Bread Products Plant — with a total one-time storage capacity of 100,000 tons. The enterprises are equipped with grain dryers and have their own certified laboratories. Chubivsky KHP has a seed line that provides the group’s farms with planting material.
According to YouControl, the founders of Tekom Agro Group are Yuriy Rodin and Mark Becker.
The Agrotrade agricultural holding has completed its winter wheat sowing campaign on 11.6 thousand hectares in the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions, according to its press service on Facebook.
Agrotrade noted that compared to last year, the area under winter wheat has been reduced by 20%. This is due to a review of the crop rotation structure and optimization for more profitable crops.
“The sowing campaign was successful and organized within the planned time frame. Despite the moisture deficit in early September and excessive soil moisture in October, all areas were sown on time,” the agricultural holding noted.
According to the chief agronomist of the agricultural group, Gennady Maly, this year the agricultural holding introduced several new technological approaches. In particular, winter wheat was sown immediately after the soybean harvest, without additional tillage. In addition, wheat was sown with wide row spacing on some of the areas so that soybeans could be sown between them in the spring.
“The area under this experiment is still small, but global experience shows the high efficiency of this practice, so we decided to test it in our own conditions and analyze the results,” he said.
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.
The TAS Agro agricultural holding has begun sowing winter crops for the 2026 harvest, starting with winter rapeseed in the fields of the Central Cluster in the Kyiv region, the company’s press service reported on Facebook.
“In accordance with the company’s crop rotation strategy, a total of 16,000 hectares are planned to be sown with winter rapeseed,” the agricultural holding said.
Agrotrade specified that sowing is carried out with the simultaneous application of complex fertilizers using Strip-till technology, which will allow for high-quality and friendly germination in case of moisture deficiency.
The Agrotrade group of companies 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.
The enterprises of Astarta, Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, have completed the spring sowing campaign on 146,000 hectares, responding quickly to the weather conditions of the season, the agricultural holding’s press service reported on Facebook.
“This year’s spring sowing took place under challenging weather conditions: abnormally high temperatures in March and frosts in April. Low soil moisture reserves after winter and their rapid decline due to early temperature rises forced the team to act quickly and in a coordinated manner. During a short “window” of favorable conditions, our divisions coordinated the entire complex of spring field work, completing sowing in the shortest possible time,” said Andriy Zagorulko, director of the crop production, logistics, and mechanization department of the agricultural holding.
Astarta noted that in the 2025 season, the crop structure will be as follows: sugar beets – 34,000 hectares, soybeans – 56,000 hectares, winter wheat – 46,000 hectares, sunflowers – 29,000 hectares, rapeseed – 11,000 hectares, corn – 14,000 hectares, and organic crops – 2,000 hectares.
Farmers are currently continuing to care for their crops, constantly monitoring their condition, moisture levels, and phytosanitary status. The production team is actively preparing for the start of the early grain harvest, which will begin in less than two months.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It comprises six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220,000 hectares, dairy farms with 22,000 head of cattle, an oil extraction plant in Hlobyn (Poltava region), seven elevators, and a biogas complex.
” In the first nine months of 2024, Astarta increased its net profit by 35.1% compared to the same period in 2023, to EUR75.60 million, revenue grew by 12.6% to EUR441.46 million, and EBITDA by 12.8% to $131.56 million.
IMC Agro Holding started the 2025 spring sowing campaign on April 16 and plans to plant 64.8 thou hectares of corn and 24.9 thou hectares of sunflower, the company’s press service reports.
“Despite the rainy and cold start to spring, as well as frequent air raids, thanks to timely tillage operations in the fall of 2024, the company managed to start the current year’s sowing campaign on time,” said Bohdan Kryvitsky, Chief Operating Officer of IMC.
He expressed confidence that due to the quality upgrade of equipment, IMC will be able to meet the optimal deadlines.
“All inventories have been purchased and delivered, the machinery is in good working order, and all production personnel are ready to lay the foundation for the upcoming spring crops,” Mr. Krivitsky emphasized.
As reported, in the fall of 2024, IMC sowed winter wheat on an area of 20.7 thou hectares, which is about 17% of the company’s land bank.
IMC Agro Holding is an integrated group of companies operating in Sumy, Poltava and Chernihiv regions (north and center of Ukraine) in the crop production, elevators and warehouses segments. The company has a land bank of about 120 thousand hectares and storage capacities of 554 thousand tons, with a harvest of 1.002 million tons in 2023.
In January-September 2024, IMC increased its revenue to $140.8 million, up 43% compared to the same period in 2023. The increase in normalized EBITDA in January-September 2024, as well as the increase in net profit in the agricultural holding, was attributed to higher sales volumes and higher grain prices.
