Agriculture in the Ukraine, once the bread basket of Europe, has fallen on sorry times since the collapse of the Soviet Union and independence in 1991. Now, however, in some sectors, a recovery is under way.
In the new Ukraine Agribusiness Report for Q409, we examine how agriculture in Ukraine can retrieve its former status, even though in the short term this will be difficult. Ukraine has been hard hit by the global recession (the report is forecasting real GDP to contract by 14.7% in 2009) and its neighbours, potential export markets, have cut back too. Some falls in production and demand are forecast across the agricultural sector for 2009/10. While the State Statistics Committee’s ‘Indices volume of agricultural production in 2009’ for January-June suggests that agricultural production was 102.6% of the figure for the same period last year, some food processing companies are reporting difficult times and crop production for 2009/10, while historically good, is expected to partly suffer from reduced inputs leading to falling yields as farmers cut back.
