Agriculture in Ukraine is one of the most important branches of its economy due to variety of climatic and demographic reasons. The agriculturally used areas take 69,1% of Ukrainian territory. More than half of all planted areas consists of cereal crops – wheat, corn (maize), rice, rye, oat, barley, millet, buckwheat. Furthermore, the main specialization field of Ukrainian agriculture is plant production, particular production of industrial and feed crops: sugar beets (63% of sugar beets in CIS is cultivated here (the 1st place)) and sunflowers (Ukraine takes the 2nd place in CIS according to its harvest). Ukraine is the biggest region of essential oil plants production: roses, lavenders, sages etc. in CIS. Other agricultural fields, such as gardening, vegetable, melon and wine growing are also good developed in Ukraine.
Nowadays agricultural industry is the base of Ukrainian economy and provides 12 % GDP. This fact was announced by the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. Also he expressed his conviction, that agricultural industry became the greatest source of currency, that flows to our country and provides the stability of Ukrainian hryvnia.
Agribusiness is the most promising branch in Ukraine. The numbers are impressive: five largest agricultural companies of the country (UkrLandFarming, NCH, Kernel Group, MHP and “Ukrainian Agrarian Investments) own the land fund, that is equal to the area of Slovenia.
Ukraine is the leader of sunflower oil production: 4.2 million tons per year – this is 28% of the world’s production.
Ukraine grows 7 times more grain than coffee around the world. But agriculture includes not only grain, milk and meat. Ukraine is one of the world leaders in the field of nuts cultivation. In 2015 marketing year, Ukraine has grown 96.9. tons of walnuts, it is the 6th place in the world.
Rape is one more reason for pride. In the 2014/2015 marketing year, world exports of rape amounted to 14.2 million tons. Ukraine took the third place in this area (14%).
It is necessary to notice, that nowadays European Union becomes the main export market for Ukrainian agricultural products. The amount of “agricultural” trade between Ukraine and Russia is almost 5 times lower than between Ukraine and EU.
All these facts confirm, that agricultural industry of Ukraine is one of the most attractive branches for investments.
