The growth potential of Ukraine’s cropping land and its infrastructure facilities, was observed firsthand by four Western Australian growers last year in a unique tour organised through Glencore Agriculture.
Esperance farmers Joe and Charlotte Della Vedova and Steve and Michelle Fowler enjoyed a private holiday across Asia and Eastern Europe in October, before making their way to Ukraine where they met with Glencore Agriculture’s Kiev-based trading team, including trading representative Roman Batashchuk.
Joe said the hospitality and information from Roman and his team provided an excellent insight into the local and global conditions affecting Ukraine farmers.
“The team had put together an informative presentation about marketing in the Ukraine,” Joe said.
“This ranged from grain pricing, which appeared on par with us, to the global supply of various grains from different parts of the world which was most informative.”
Over the past 10 years Ukrainian production has almost doubled to 81mmt in 2016/17, mainly in corn, sunseeds and soybeans.
Exports are forecast to reach 58mmt in coming years, up from its current 50mmt. In 2016/17, Ukraine was the world’s largest exporter of sunflower oil, third largest in barley, fourth in corn and sixth in wheat.
Ukraine’s major wheat export destinations are the Indian subcontinent, Egypt and South East Asia; barley predominately heads to the Middle East; and corn to Egypt and Europe. Like Australia, their sustainable rapeseed is mainly supplied to the European biodiesel market.
The growers learned that 29 per cent of Ukrainian cropping land was managed by corporate agri-holdings – vertically integrated agricultural companies – and 71 per cent by small and medium farmers.
“However, agri-holdings make up 50 per cent of Ukraine’s exportable surplus,” Roman said.
“Agri-holdings have better yields than small and medium farm enterprises due to better use of technologies.
“Farmers make up the remaining 50 per cent of exports and most of them sell ex-farm or ex-warehouse, while a few deliver to ports.”
Roman said Ukraine had one of the smallest average yields per hectare globally.
“If they applied Australian crop rotation technologies, Ukraine would make better use of its black fertile soils,” Roman said.
Michelle agreed the Ukrainian soils had a lot of potential.
“Never again will we see such incredible soils. We are Western Australian sand plain farmers and our soils couldn’t have been more different to those in the Ukraine,” Michelle said.
“This fertility means there are big differences in the types of produce that can be grown. We even saw coriander swathed into rows, which closely resembled our own canola swathes until we got close enough to see and smell the difference.”
Michelle also noticed the contrast in technologies between the agri-holdings and farmers.
“We became accustomed to seeing horses and carts driving along main highways and in paddocks, next to machinery worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are some truly huge corporate farms in Ukraine, which we were not expecting,” she said.
“There were also many different grain storage facilities in Ukraine, some more modern than others.”
The group spent a couple of days self-driving around farms before meeting up with Roman again in Uman, about 200km from Kiev, who took them to Glencore Agriculture’s Balta storage and handling site.
“Australian growers appear to present better quality cereal grain, possibly due to our weather conditions,” Joe said. “Also the Australian technology is more modern. They are still using the old equipment left behind by the previous regime, but we assume the Ukrainian system will catch up soon.
“The grain was put into grades similar to ours which surprised us – APW, ASW and so on – they even had an H2 pile.
“The existing rail system appears to be the main transport and roads certainly need upgrading if farmers are to reach peak production. We saw a huge amount of road construction during our short visit so the government is certainly addressing this shortfall. The main route between Kiev and Odessa is already a four-lane highway with a six-lane super highway in some areas.
“We were impressed with Glencore Agriculture’s professionalism both in Kiev and at the site and very thankful for their guidance and hospitality during the trip. The workplace standards were the equivalent to WA in the grain storage facility – including breath analysis for prior vodka drinking!”