Buckwheat grains in Ukraine in 2019 can be halved - to 40-50 thousand hectares from about 100 thousand hectares in 2018 due to the intervention of low-quality buckwheat groats from Russia. Compared with the indicator of 2017 (184 thousand hectares) next year crops of this culture will be reduced by 4-5 times.

"Last year, from Russia were brought to Ukraine buckwheat groats, which for 9 indicators does not correspond to our State Standard. Already this year the area under buckwheat crops has decreased almost twice (to 100 thousand hectares from 184 thousand hectares in 2017). And if there will be no change for better crop of buckwheat in Ukraine will be reduced more and more ", - said the participant of the Ukrainian Agricultural Council (UAC), the director of “Viktoria” LLC (Kyiv region) Nikolay Malienko.

The fact is that Russia deliberately sells its low-quality buckwheat on the Ukrainian market at dumped prices that are lower than the cost of quality Ukrainian grains. Because of this, domestic producers are forced to lower their prices, thereby reducing their own profitability. Thus, the intervention of Russian cereals on the Ukrainian market destroys the economic motivation of domestic agrarians to further grow this culture.

A number of UAC participants, who have been growing buckwheat, have already said that they will cut crop areas under this crop, or completely abandon its cultivation.

Therefore, instead of growing their own products, Ukraine in the future risks becoming an importer of low-quality buckwheat from the aggressor country, which is systematically increasing the volume of its products in the Ukrainian market.

According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, in 2017, Ukraine officially delivered 15.9 thousand tons of grain, of which 12.7 thousand - from the Russian Federation, and 17.3 thousand tons - from Kazakhstan, which also supplies to Ukraine buckwheat groats of Russian production. At the same time, significant amounts of buckwheat groats were imported through semi-legal schemes. Therefore, according to analysts, the total volume of imports of buckwheat groats from Russia, including "shadow" shipments, is at least 50 thousand tons. Instead, domestic plants last year produced only 55 thousand tons of cereals. Thus, the share of Russian cereals in Ukrainian rice has already reached about 45-50%.

In 2018, the buckwheat harvest in Russia is expected to be about 1.0-1.2 million tons at domestic consumption of 750 tons (in 2017, the buckwheat harvest in Russia amounted to over 1.7 million tons). In this case, the aggressor state in every way stimulates the growth of the production of buckwheat.

One of the ways to solve the problem of the intervention of a low-quality Russian product is to close the domestic borders for the import of buckwheat. The corresponding decision will stimulate the domestic manufacturer. Otherwise, Ukraine risks lowering the buckwheat crops, which is a traditional food for ordinary Ukrainians. This is despite the fact that in 2000, buckwheat in Ukraine was sown about 500 thousand hectares, which is ten times more than planned in 2019.

Reducing buckwheat crops, in turn, will negatively affect the domestic industry of beekeeping, because there is no substitute for this culture as a honey mass.