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.
In 2025, Tekom Agro Group increased its land bank by 1,270,000 hectares, bringing its total area to more than 26,000 hectares, the company’s press service reported on Facebook.
Sergey Shtyrbulov, deputy head of the agricultural association for production, noted that in 2025, winter crops, in particular rapeseed, barley, wheat, and peas, occupied 80% of all areas, while 20% of the areas were allocated for sunflowers and lentils.
“We are already planning to sow lentils, sunflowers, and a new crop for us — flax. It will be sown in the Chernomorets division and partly in the north. In the spring, as soon as we conduct a survey of the meter-deep soil layer and find out the amount of precipitation, we will make a decision on crop rotation. If there is up to 100 mm of precipitation, we will most likely exclude sunflowers. However, this will allow us to expand the area under flax and lentils,” said Shtyrbulov.
According to him, the condition of winter crops in the agricultural association is currently assessed as satisfactory, and in some places better than satisfactory.
According to Shebulov, Tekom Agro Group began implementing Verti-till technology in 2025, which helped reduce cultivation costs by approximately $1 million. In fields where conventional tillage was used, yields were half those achieved with Verti-till.
Tekom Agro Group is a modern agricultural association operating in the Podolsk, Odessa, Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, and Razdelnyansky districts of the Odessa region. The management company, Telekom Agro Group LLC, was founded in 2021. The group unites four farms: Yasnye Zori LLC, Chernomorets LLC, Agrofirma Pivdenna LLC, and Liman LLC. It specializes in growing grain and oil crops. It owns two elevators with a total simultaneous storage capacity of about 100,000 tons.
The group is part of the sphere of influence of the shareholders of Pivdenny Bank. Its ultimate beneficiaries are Yuriy Rodin and Mark Becker.
