Ukraine can multiply the production and export of grain, while their industrial processing can increase by no more than 2 million tonnes per year, President of the Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA) Mykola Horbachev said at an online conference on Tuesday.
“The cries about the need to process more inside the country are groundless. It is necessary to create a good raw material base that will show the whole world: if it is profitable to export, then investors will come and build processing plants themselves,” he said.
According to Horbachev, Ukraine could reduce its need for gasoline, which exports 4 million tonnes annually, by adding up to 20% of bioethanol produced from corn.
The president of UGA cited calculations according to which 0.38 tonnes of ethanol can be produced from 1 tonne of corn. Accordingly, to provide the required 800,000 tonnes of ethanol in the form of an additive to gasoline, Ukraine will process about 2 million tonnes of corn.
In addition, Horbachev said that over 20 years Ukraine has increased its corn production 10 times, while this figure is not the limit, since most agricultural producers grow 6-7 tonnes per hectare. He said that there are farms in the country that grow corn using the correct technological processes, equipment and seeds getting 12-14 tonnes per hectare.
“We grow three times more than we are able to consume. We export two-thirds. If we boost our production potential, we will export more and more in percentage,” he said.
According to Horbachev, if Ukraine does not increase grain exports, there will be other suppliers on the global market, and the country will lag behind not only in aircraft and rocket manufacturing, but also in agriculture.
“Traders perform one of the most important functions – they take excess grain that cannot be consumed here in Ukraine from the market,” he said.
