Ukraine

Last year, Ukraine exported agricultural and food products worth $ 15.5 billion, which accounted for 42.5% of all exports. According to the Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine, Olga Trofimtseva, Ukrainian exports of agricultural products increased by 4.5% compared with 2015.

The creation of chocolate products in Ukraine last year fell by 6% - to 170.4 thousand tons. According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, in 2015, 181.7 thousand tons of chocolate bars, tiles and sweets were made. Due to the loss of the Russian market as the main purchaser of chocolate products from Ukrainian producers, in 2016 the size of chocolate exports plummeted.

The average salary of employees in agriculture, forestry and fisheries increased from UAH 3,283 to UAH 4,956 (by 51%) from January to December 2016. According to the State Statistics Committee, compared with December 2015, the amount of wages increased by 29.9%. In January-December last year, the wages of agricultural workers increased from 3,054 hryvnias to 4,417 hryvnias.

According to the chairman of the Ukrainian Association of Suppliers of Retail Networks, Aleksey Doroshenko, product prices in January were record highs. He commented on the situation: “The Cabinet of Ministers, putting 8% inflation in the 2017 budget, did not count on such a significant increase in prices for products and goods at the beginning of the year.

In Ukraine, intends to build three factories for the production of biological products on the basis of soil bacteria. According to information received from the Public Relations Department of the Department of Agrarian and Industrial Development of the Volyn Oblast State Administration, one of these three plants will be built in the Volyn Oblast.

For the Ukrainian market, colored potatoes are still new and unusual, causing interest. But still the domestic Institute of Potato showed the results of research on potatoes, namely, two types of potatoes with colored coloring of the pulp of tubers. The first is called Solokha, the flesh of which is blue, and the second, Khortytsya, with a reddish tinge.

In February, Ukraine will completely fill out the annual quotas for 2017 for the duty-free export of poultry meat to the European Union, February 2, the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Taras Kutovoy said. According to him, by mid-February, Ukraine will close quotas for poultry meat. In addition, the country has already filled in quotas for the supply of corn.

This week, Ukrainian exporters intend to start supplying Ukrainian cucumbers to the EU. Many of the Ukrainian firms that have already engaged in the supply of vegetables to the EU market, have announced their readiness for export. This is mostly about the Polish market. According to the exporters of Info-Shuvar, not paying attention to the relatively high cost, European customers are already interested in Ukrainian cucumbers, and as a result, Ukrainian suppliers are actively negotiating with greenhouses to prepare the product, according to the requirements of European customers.

In 2016, Ukrainian farmers put agricultural products on the European Union market in the amount of $ 4.2 billion, which is 1.6% more compared to 2015, said the deputy director for scientific work at the scientific center of the National Institute of Agrarian Economics, a member of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, Nikolai Pugachev.

According to the data of the Public Relations Department of the Milk Producers Association, the purchase price of milk in Ukraine in January of this year compared to January 2016 increased by almost 50%. It was reported that the average price for milk of extra class for the year increased by 49% - to 9.43 UAH / per liter (including VAT).

Since yesterday evening, temperatures began to fall in Russia and Ukraine and weather forecasters predict several cold nights before the end of this week. In central Ukraine, according to forecasts, the temperature dropped to -11C yesterday and will fall to -20C tomorrow and over the next few nights. A similar situation has developed over the central part of Russia around Kursk, Voronezh and Lipetsk, where -24C was registered last night with a possible cooling down to -26C tomorrow.

The export of Ukrainian food products to the United Arab Emirates in recent years shows a negative trend and at the moment it accounts for less than 1% of export earnings. This may be due to difficulties with the "Halal" certification, which began to be felt last year.

State support for small and medium-sized farmers will allow Ukraine to increase agricultural production by nearly 10 million tons per year, said Taras Kutovoy, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food. According to him, the Ministry declares that there are agricultural small and medium agricultural enterprises that should dominate the structure of state support.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Agriculture of Ukraine submitted 11 bills to the Verkhovna Rada for consideration, which may be adopted as a law. Of the 11 bills submitted, seven have already been reviewed by Verkhovna Rada committees and recommended for adoption. The first bill is the demonopolization of the alcohol industry, in particular, this means the privatization of the state-owned alcohol producer Ukrspirt, which produces vodka and industrial alcohol, which is a fairly profitable business in Ukraine.

According to the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Taras Kutovogo, today the European Commission is discussing the possibility of reducing the quota for duty-free supplies of corn from Ukraine. It should be noted that since the beginning of 2017, Ukraine has already filled quotas for the supply of corn to the EU at the level of 400 thousand tons.

According to the press service of the company, in February 2017, the company Allseeds Black Sea will begin implementation of its logistics project for transshipment of oilseeds using its production equipment in the South Port, which is located in Odessa. "There will be three phases of the project.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine decided to exclude the public joint-stock company of the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine from the list of state property privatized in 2017. PJSC, known as the SCRPU, was established in 2010 and, according to their website, is the most powerful state-owned vertically integrated company in the agricultural sector and is a leader in the storage, processing, transportation and export of grain.

The United States is ready to negotiate on the supply of Ukrainian organic wheat in the domestic market, said Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Taras Kutovoy. According to him, the United States has very much regulated laws in the field of food safety because of which it is quite difficult to introduce new products to the market.

The stevedoring company Novotekh-Terminal LTD has begun construction of a new grain terminal, with a design capacity of almost 3 million tons per year in the Odessa Commercial Sea Port, said the press service of Pivdenny Bank, which acts as a financial partner of the project. In particular, the terminal will also include a port elevator with a simultaneous capacity of 110 thousand tons.

The Minister of Agriculture of Ukraine today will meet with representatives of the World Bank to discuss the current state of the forest industry in Ukraine and the need for comprehensive reforms. The Minister noted that the reform of the forest sector is one of the priorities of the ministry’s activities, but this is controversial and difficult in terms of social tensions, with a lot of opinions, divergences and misinterpretations.