Farmers in nine regions near the front lines are receiving free grain storage bags

Ukraine has begun distributing special storage bags to farmers for the temporary storage of grains and oilseeds. The assistance is being provided to farms with land holdings ranging from 100 to 3,000 hectares in nine regions near the front lines.

The program covers the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Chernihiv regions. Priority is given to farms whose infrastructure has been damaged by hostilities.

In total, farmers have submitted 2,319 applications for 13,881 storage silos. Each silo can hold about 200 metric tons of grain, which will provide additional storage capacity for approximately 2.8 million metric tons of grain.

The Ministry of Agrarian Policy noted that the need for storage facilities remains significant. Due to infrastructure damage and a slowdown in exports, the shortage of storage capacity for grains and oilseeds could reach 11 million metric tons by November.

The aid is being provided free of charge as part of an international initiative involving humanitarian organizations and Ukrainian government agencies.

Source: Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine

In the Mykolaiv region, farmers find themselves in a difficult situation and are forced to leave a significant portion of their tomato and onion harvests in the fields or dispose of them. The main reasons for the crop losses were the lack of stable markets, difficulties in selling through retail chains, and the destruction of regional processing facilities.

Attacks by Russia, the aggressor state, on civilian vessels have effectively halted operations at ports in the Odesa region, which until recently accounted for about 90% of Ukraine’s agricultural exports. Due to limited export opportunities, farmers are facing a shortage of funds to complete the harvest and plant winter crops, according to Deutsche Welle.

The government has approved emergency support for Ukrainian farmers suffering from Russian attacks in the Black Sea and problems with export routes. Farmers will have expanded access to preferential loans under the “5-7-9%” program. The total amount of available loans could reach 80 billion hryvnia.