Ukrainian agricultural sector to post losses this year due to low prices on domestic market

MOSCOW. Nov 13 (Interfax) --Despite the high 2023 harvest with a 5 to 10% growth from the previous year, the Ukrainian agricultural sector will nevertheless post losses due to negative domestic market price levels, Ukraine's First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Taras Vysotsky said.

"Over the course of two years of crisis, agricultural production figures in Ukraine remained at a high level, even showing a 5-10% year-on-year growth. This primarily applies to corn. With a smaller cultivated area, reported gross product will reach 29 to 30 million tons. It is a similar situation for soya and rapeseed. This indicates that agrarians are doing everything they can," Ukrainian media quoted Vysotsky as saying in a statement at a farmers' congress in Kiev.

The price situation is now worse than it was last year, he said.

"If it were the same plus 5-10%, it would be less worrying in principle. But unfortunately, the price situation suggests that given the current prices, the year will be unprofitable for the entire industry," he said.

Two weeks ago, representatives of leading agrarian associations estimated the amount of the agricultural sector's losses in 2023 at $3.5 billion.

"Regrettably, this figure reflects the reality. Given the scale of our agro-industrial complex, this is a significant, a big negative number," he said.

The problem can be solved only through improvements in logistics, as an optimization of export routes automatically leads to higher prices on the domestic market, Vysotsky said.