XII International Conference «Doing agribusiness in Ukraine»: results
On December 9, for the first time in its 12-year history, the "Ukrainian Agribusiness Club" Association and the UCABevent agency held the DoAgro conference in an interactive online format. True to tradition, the conference brought together government and business representatives to summarize the results and discuss the changes that took place in the agricultural sector in 2020.
Among the event's speakers were representatives of the Office of the President of Ukraine, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on agrarian and land policy, the State Service for geodesy, cartography and cadastre, industry experts, and international representatives. The conference began with a speech by Yuliia Kovaliv, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, who emphasized that the agricultural sector served as the foundation for slowing down the economic decline in 2020.
According to preliminary IMF forecasts, the economy was expected to contract by 7% due to the pandemic, but the decline is now projected to be no more than 5%.
Yuliia KovalivDeputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine
According to him, the focus of state support for 2022 will be on small and medium-sized agricultural producers.
This year has been one of the most challenging due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the agricultural sector—like the rest of Ukraine's economic sectors—also felt the impact of quarantine and logistical restrictions, forcing it to restructure its operations.
Summarizing 2020, for the agricultural sector, this year will go down in history as the year when the Verkhovna Rada adopted one of the most historic decisions for the industry and the country's economy—the law on opening the land market. Starting July 1, 2021, we expect the free circulation of agricultural land to begin. The market will open in stages, so active legislative preparations will be carried out over the next six months.
The second important block is the bill on inland water transport, which will soon become law. Agricultural logistics is one of the issues that has concerned businesses in recent years and has stood as a "cornerstone" for increasing the country's export potential. The introduction and regulation of river transport will make it possible to transport 10–15 million tons of grain cargo via river transport, which will become more competitive and relieve congestion on the railways and roads. It is worth noting that as part of solving logistics issues, the "Big Construction" program was launched, designed to channel substantial investments into road construction over 4–5 years.
Yuliia Kovaliv Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine
Dmytro Senik, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for digital development, digital transformations and digitalization (CDTO), attended the event and presented a case study titled "How the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Helps Ukrainian Agribusiness." Dmytro spoke about the practical initiatives the Ministry has launched to help Ukrainian businesses enter foreign markets.
Briefly put, the Ministry's global outreach currently encompasses 80 Ukrainian diplomatic missions, and we cooperate with the authorities of 119 accreditation countries. Key regions of cooperation include Europe, Asia and Oceania, Africa and the Middle East, as well as North and South America. Plans for 2021 include expanding our presence to assist our exporters in entering new markets.
Dmytro SenikDeputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for digital development, digital transformations and digitalization (CDTO)
During his speech, UCAB President Alex Lissitsa emphasized that this year the agricultural sector shifted from dealing with human capital and innovation issues to resolving the challenge of how to live during quarantine and maintain production.
It is worth noting that while classical global agribusiness discussed the entire product production and supply chain to the end consumer—the "from farm to table" approach, so to speak—the cornerstone topic in Ukraine became agrarian policy, which centered around two main issues: whether the Ministry of Agrarian Policy would be reinstated and the land reform.
Alex LissitsaPresident of UCAB, CEO of IMC
Denys Bashlyk, Director of Government Relations at UCAB, also noted that 2020 can be called the year of reforming land relations.
Since the land market in Ukraine was distorted during the years of the moratorium, it is impossible to simply take a global market model and apply it to Ukrainian realities. Therefore, for the effective implementation of the free circulation of agricultural land, 9 draft laws were registered simultaneously in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, forming the "land package" of the reform. Unfortunately, three important draft laws still remain unadopted, without which the land reform is not comprehensive: No. 2194 on the deregulation of land relations, No. 2195 on the introduction of electronic land auctions, and the draft law on land consolidation.
Denys BashlykDirector of Government Relations at UCAB
Taras Vysotskyi, Deputy Minister of economic development, trade and agriculture of Ukraine, focused during the event on solving the problem of agricultural insurance in the country.
Since the land market in Ukraine was distorted during the years of the moratorium, it is impossible to simply take a global market model and apply it to Ukrainian realities. Therefore, for the effective implementation of the free circulation of agricultural land, 9 draft laws were registered simultaneously in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, forming the "land package" of the reform. Unfortunately, three important draft laws still remain unadopted, without which the land reform is not comprehensive: No. 2194 on the deregulation of land relations, No. 2195 on the introduction of electronic land auctions, and the draft law on land consolidation.
Taras VysotskyiDeputy Minister of economic development, trade and agriculture of Ukraine
During the panel discussion, Mykola Solskyi, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy, spoke about the key areas of the committee's work in 2020.
Among the completed work, it is worth highlighting draft law No. 2178-10 on lifting the moratorium on the sale of land, the preparation of which took 5 months, and draft law No. 2280 on changing designated land use. Among the finalized draft laws aimed at resolving specific issues in the agricultural sector were the unblocking of feed additives, the equalization of VAT on soybeans and rapeseed, and the resolution of a number of other problematic issues. Among the major draft laws passed in the first reading are those concerning the deregulation of land management, veterinary medicine, and the division of state-owned enterprises into shares. A number of other important draft laws have also been prepared and are awaiting review and adoption.
Mykola SolskyiChairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on agrarian and land policy
As part of the event, a number of other speakers addressed the sector's most pressing issues: Ellina Yurchenko, Land Issues Expert at UCAB, spoke about the consolidation of agricultural lands; Volodymyr Lapa, Strategic Development Advisor to the President of UCAB, shared a case study on forward contracts for the 2021 harvest; and Anatoliy Miroshnychenko, Deputy Head of the StateGeoCadastre, discussed the restructuring of the agency's operations within the framework of land reform implementation.
Thank you to everyone who joined the DoAgro20 conference. We are also pleased to announce that registration for the summer event of the "UCAB Agrotechnologies 2021" project is now open, so don't miss it!