This statement was made during a recent high-level summit of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on the integration of Ukraine’s agri-food sector into the EU.
This is evidenced by the results of a joint study by IAMO’s Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Development in Transition Economies and the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE). They were presented at the event by Oleksandr Dolzhenkov, director of government relations at NIBULON, the company’s press service reported.
The quoted source noted that such a large-scale impact on the global food market, as well as logistics and bioenergy, will be a consequence of the integration at the EU-Ukraine level of 42 million hectares of agricultural land.
However, according to Oleksandr Dolzhenkov, European conditions for Ukrainian agricultural producers should include not only quality standards, but also access to fair financing. Because, “without this, deep integration remains on paper”.
For its part, the EBRD presented the FAST to EU program, a comprehensive initiative to support the agribusiness sector on its way to the EU, which includes: direct financing and grants, technical assistance, and support for policy reforms.
According to expert estimates, by now foreign companies and foundations directly or indirectly control at least a fifth of Ukraine’s agricultural land.
