The last hot days of July called almost all farmers into the field. And although the harvest, as Deputy Head of the Regional State Administration Vitaliy Zaremba said at a meeting of the press club of reforms, began this year on a minor note due to the absence of a "clear" grain market, agricultural producers cannot allow the grain to perish in the field.
On Monday, out of 151.6 thousand hectares of grain that agricultural enterprises are to harvest, 12.8 percent had already been mown and threshed. If we compare this year's start of the harvest campaign with last year's, the difference is observed only in the fact that in 2004, grain sales began practically from the first days of harvesting. Now, however, there is still a lull in the region's grain market.
- We hope that the Agrarian Fund, for whose activity funds have already been allocated, will start working, - said Vitaliy Zaremba. – It is planned to sell forty-four kilograms from a tonne of the harvest to the fund. In addition, thirty-seven thousand tonnes of grain will go for regional needs. Through KHP No. 2, grain will be procured for the State Reserve. Five to six thousand tonnes can be accepted by Ahroremmash in settlement for leasing.
As became known, the State Joint-Stock Company "Bread of Ukraine" recently concluded export contracts worth 1 billion 700 thousand hryvnias, according to which it will supply grain to Europe. For instance, brewing barley at the port in Odesa is already ready to be bought today at 730 hryvnias per tonne.
This year, Volyn will for the first time in recent times have enough fodder grain, which will make it possible to fully provide the livestock sector with compound feed. By the way, at one of the recent conference-call meetings, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko assured that the government would do everything so that over the next five years the livestock sector develops predictably and feels a favorable climate in the tax field. So agricultural producers will evidently have to truly feel how closely the grain sector is connected with the livestock sector.
Acting Head of the Association of Farmers and Landowners of Volyn Mykola Sobutskyi, expressing his vision of the situation with grain, spoke about the management crisis of the previous leadership of the agro-industrial sector, since the grain market infrastructure was practically unknown to producers. There was no systemic analysis of what needed to be sown and in what quantities. For example, rapeseed is today called one of the most promising crops in agriculture, the Germans are ready to build their own plants for the production of rapeseed diesel fuel here, but agricultural producers, apart from slogans, have so far not heard how to establish rapeseed cultivation in our conditions, where to get good seed on credit, how to bring rapeseed grain to the required condition, when there are no elevators in Volyn, etc.
Given all this, the grain sales market is beginning to acquire certain defined forms. However, agricultural producers are increasingly having more questions. For example, why will grain for the State Reserve be accepted at a price that will amount to only 90 percent of the cost per tonne of grain declared by the Cabinet of Ministers? Why will Ahroremmash accept grain in settlement for leasing not at the market price, but again at pledge prices? Obviously, agricultural producers will not receive answers to these questions any time soon.
Olena DUDKEVYCH