Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Vitaliy Koval and representatives of the USAID Harvest program handed over the first 10 grain dryers to farmers working in the frontline areas, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food reported.
“The first 10 grain dryers will benefit more than 100 farmers. This will allow them to increase production, ensure proper drying of grain and sell products with 15-20% added value in the frontline regions,” the minister said.
According to him, the USAID Harvest program will also provide farmers with 7,000 grain sleeves, which will help preserve 1.4 million tons of grain. The initiative is aimed at overcoming the critical shortage of grain storage capacity in Chernihiv, Dnipro, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions and will help about 300 farms with an area of 1,000 to 10,000 hectares.
Koval reminded that during the war, when granaries for long-term storage of grain were destroyed throughout the frontline territory, such sleeves became a real salvation for Ukrainian farmers.
The Minister thanked the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which, with the financial support of the governments of Canada, Japan and the United States, were able to implement this program.