Agrarians from Odesa region have started sowing spring crops.
This was reported by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food (https://www.kmu.gov.ua/news/v-ukrayini-rozpochalas-posivna-kampaniya)
As of the 22nd of March spring barley has been sown on 30,000 hectares out of 750,000 planned.
According to the information received from the regional administration, 70% of famers have been provided with enough seeds, 80% of agricultural producers have received sufficient amounts of seeds, 62% and 46% have received plants and fuel accordingly.
In the Mykolayiv region fertilization of winter crops has continued, sowing of peas has begunl.
The government has started a robust program to support agrarians. In particular, additional loans for agrarians with less than 10 thousand hectares of soil for cultivation, changes around taxation (according to which famers will only have to pay 2% of turnover).
Additionally, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has made several decisions around easing the access to fuel, pesticides and agrochemicals for agricultural goods producers.
“It’s been allowed to start utilization of petrol and diesel fuel with Euro3 and Euro 4 environmental classes. Customs procedures for suppliers of petroleum products have been simplified. Thanks to this, additional resources to fulfill the needs of agricultural producers would be allocated.”, highlighted Roman Leschenko, the minister of Agrarian Policy and Food.
Furthermore, fuel excise tax has been canceled and VAT has been reduced from 20% to 7% (bill #7137-d).
In addition to this, the government has also simplified [petrol and diesel fuel] road transportation. Work permits that are connected with transportation, storage, utilization and trading of pesticides and agrochemicals have also been extended. This norm is based on the duration of martial law in Ukraine, including 90 days upon its termination or abolishment.
“The simplification is only in relevance to obtaining the license. All security, transportation and quality checks will remain on the proper level.” highlighted the minister.
To fulfill the needs of the agriculture sector the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food has launched a platform agrostatus.org. The Minister called on farmers to pass a survey as soon as possible and voice the needs to speed up the provision of sowing.
According to the world's agricultural analytics 700m people will be suffering due to the war of Russia in Ukraine. At the same time, Ukraine has enough food stocks for domestic consumption needs.