The long-awaited revival in the construction of vegetable storage facilities has begun in Ukraine, with small and medium-sized facilities prevailing, Andriy Marushchak, Commercial Director of Van Dyke Techs, told SEEDS in an interview. According to him, this format allows farms to quickly meet local needs, but “storage is not everything”: without parallel development of processing, the effect will be limited.
According to the expert, construction is currently most active in Lviv, Khmelnytsky, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Odesa, Dnipro, and Chernihiv regions. The farmers’ decision was influenced by the high cost of logistics: “It is no longer as profitable to transport onions 400-800 km as it is to grow and store them closer to the market,” Marushchak said.
The most promising areas for a quick launch are French fries, dried mashed potatoes, peeled/ready-made potatoes; for onions, peeling, freezing and drying. In countries where processing is already in operation, farmers have gradually scaled up storage facilities from 3 to 30 thousand tons or more; it is logical for the Ukrainian market to follow the same trajectory, the expert emphasizes.
Vegetable consumption in Ukraine is less than 30% of WHO recommendations (≈150-200 g per day versus 600 g), which restrains demand beyond the “borscht set”. In a typical consumption structure, the share of potatoes is 50-60%, cabbage – ~10%, carrots – ~5%, and beets – “very little,” Marushchak said.
For the stable operation of storage and processing plants, it is important for farmers to form commodity lots and fulfill long-term contracts through professionally managed cooperatives, a model that has been successfully operating in the EU, the expert emphasizes.
https://www.seeds.org.ua/ovochesxovishh-v-ukraini-stane-bilshe-fermeri-pochali-aktivne-budivnictvo/
The total forecast for wheat production in Ukraine for the 2025-2026 marketing year (July-June) is about 21 million tons, of which 10.3 million tons will be food wheat, while the harvest of grade 1-2 grain, which is needed to produce bread-making flour, is forecast at 1.7 million tons, according to Rodion Rybchinsky, chairman of the Ukrainian Millers’ Union.
“We are already seeing growing competition between processors and exporters for high-quality wheat, while farmers, who have the opportunity to store grain for several years, are in no hurry to sell it. This creates risks for price stability and the availability of flour and bakery products for consumers,“ the association’s press service quoted him as saying at the ”Khleb.ua” conference on its Facebook page.
Rybchynsky drew attention to the situation with rye. Domestic production of this crop in Ukraine does not fully cover domestic demand. In 2025/26 MY, flour millers will have to import about 9,000 tons, while in the previous season this figure was 1,600 tons. The expert emphasized that such an increase in imports indicates the formation of a persistent shortage of raw materials.
“The current production structure and behavior of farmers may lead to further increases in flour prices. While the shortage of first- and second-class raw materials already determines the industry’s prospects, the issue of food grain availability poses risks to the country’s food security,” stressed the head of the Ukrainian Millers Association.
German newspaper Die Welt, citing EU diplomats, reports that Chinese authorities have confirmed their readiness to participate in a peacekeeping contingent for Ukraine.
However, it is emphasized that the government in Beijing will be ready to do so “if the peacekeepers are deployed on the basis of a United Nations mandate.”
“In Brussels, Beijing’s plan has met with a mixed reaction. On the one hand, it is said that the inclusion of countries from the Global South, such as China, could make the deployment of foreign troops for peace monitoring more acceptable,” Die Welt writes.
“However, on the other hand,” the publication continues, “there is also a danger that China will primarily want to spy on Ukraine and take a clearly pro-Russian position instead of a neutral one in the event of a conflict,” said a senior EU diplomat familiar with the ongoing discussions.
The number of written appeals to the National Bank of Ukraine on the activities of insurance companies in the second quarter of 2025 decreased by 9.3% – to 321, oral appeals through the contact center – by 18%, to 41, according to the report on the work with appeals of consumers of financial services in the mentioned period.
“We observe a tendency to decrease the number of written appeals on the work of financial, collection companies and insurers. At the same time, we note an increase in the number of questions regarding the work of banks of all forms of ownership,” the report says.
It is noted that the share of identified violations in written appeals regarding the activities of insurers is 22%, state banks – 2.8%, private banks – 1.8%, foreign banks -1.3%, financial companies – 21%, collection companies – 34%.
Appeals regarding the activities of insurers relate to disputes when the consumer received compensation not in full or did not receive it at all.
According to the NBU, the reasons for such problems vary from violations of legislation on the part of insurers to the provision of false data on the occurrence of an insured event by the consumer. In addition, the amount of compensation for material damage may differ from the actual amount due to the expert opinion of the involved insurer’s specialist and the application of depreciation in the calculation of material damage, which is determined by the current legislation or the terms of the contract.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the next 15 days “critical” and welcomed US President Donald Trump’s intention to provide security guarantees for Ukraine.
In an interview with the public broadcaster LCI published on August 19, he said that in the next few weeks, everything possible should be done to ensure that a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin takes place. “Then, according to the plan, a trilateral summit could take place in early September,” Macron added.
“But there is work to be done on security guarantees. Therefore, the next 15 days are absolutely critical. To finalize the work with the Americans to give content to the security guarantees. But first of all, we are going to eliminate ambiguities,” the French president said.
The specific content of the security guarantees is currently unknown, although Macron said that “the British, French, Germans, Turks and others are ready to carry out operations – not on the front line, not provocatively, but support operations in the air, at sea and on land.” At the same time, he warned that Russia is a destabilizing force, and President Vladimir Putin “has rarely kept his commitments.”
“One thing I know is that since the end of 2007-2008, President Putin has rarely honored his commitments. He has always been a destabilizing force and has sought to redraw borders to expand his power,” the French president said.
“It is a predator, it is a cannibal at our gates. I’m not saying that tomorrow there will be an attack (by Russia – IF-U) on France, but in the end, it is a threat to Europeans,” Macron said.
As of August 15, farmers harvested 24.81 million tons of early grain and leguminous crops from 6 million 186.6 thousand hectares, which is 55% of the area sown with these crops, according to the Ministry of Economy.
Last year, as of August 16, 28.46 million tons of grain were harvested from 6 million 717.6 thousand hectares, which means that the current figures are 12.8% and 7.9% lower, respectively, and the average yield, which is 4.0 tons/ha, is 5.4% lower.
According to the Ministry of Economy, 18.99 million tons of wheat were harvested from 3 million 396.2 thousand hectares (last year – 21.68 million tons from 4 million 846.1 thousand hectares), barley – 4.73 million tons from 1 million 247.2 thousand hectares (5.48 million tons from 1 million 397.4 thousand hectares).
The average yield of these crops this year is 4.3 tons/ha and 3.8 tons/ha, respectively, which is 3.5% and 3.3% less than last year’s figures.
At the same time, this year’s pea harvest is already higher than last year’s – 0.57 million tons from 230,300 hectares compared to 0.46 million tons from 207,600 hectares, and the yield is 12.8% higher at 2.5 tons/hectare.
Other grains and legumes were threshed on an area of 310,800 hectares, with a harvest of 0.51 million tons (0.83 million tons).
It is noted that among the leaders are, in particular, the Odessa region, which harvested 3.43 million tons from an area of 1 million 70,400 hectares, the Kirovohrad region harvested 2.20 million tons from an area of 533,400 hectares, and the Vinnytsia region harvested 2.08 million tons from an area of 337,600 hectares.
In the Kirovograd and Dnipropetrovsk regions, buckwheat harvesting has begun (0.1 thousand tons, compared to 2.4 thousand tons on the same date last year), and 1.5 thousand tons of millet (9.5 thousand tons) have also been harvested, the Ministry of Economy added.
According to its data, the rapeseed harvest as of August 15 amounted to 3.01 million tons from an area of 1 million 184.8 thousand hectares, while last year on August 16, it was 3.36 million tons from 1 million 227.6 thousand hectares, and the average yield is 7% lower than last year’s on the same date and amounts to 2.5 tons/ha.
As reported, the National Bank of Ukraine, in its Inflation Report published at the end of July, lowered its forecast for this year’s grain harvest from 61.7 million tons to 57.9 million tons, and for oilseeds from 22 million tons to 21 million tons.
The NBU recalled that last year, the grain harvest in Ukraine fell to 56.2 million tons from 59.8 million tons in 2023, while oilseeds fell from 21.7 million tons to 20 million tons.
According to forecasts by Deputy Minister of Economy Taras Vysotsky, this year’s grain harvest will be about 56 million tons, the same as last year.
