The only political ambitions of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council (UAC) are to encourage implementation of a fair and effective state policy in the agricultural sector which would contribute to the development of agriculture in Ukraine. This is reflected in the body of the memorandum. The UAC invites all parliamentary political forces to signing the memorandum.

It was announced by Andriy Dykun, Chairman of the UAC and his Deputy, Myhailo Sokolov during a press conference at IA "Ukrinform" on Thursday, April 5.

"When it comes to the political ambitions of our organization, we do not hide the fact that our main goal is to implement a right agrarian policy   which will contribute to the growth of agriculture in the country. This political ambition is reflected in the memorandum. We are currently signing it with different parliamentary factions, with everyone who is ready, nobody will be an exception", - M. Sokolov emphasized and noted that text of the memorandum is free to read to anyone.

At the same time, Myhailo Sokolov mentioned that the UAC will ensure that political forces that joined the memorandum fulfill their obligations and inform general public on the results of the work done.

Andriy Dykun, Chairman of the UAC added that a black PR campaign was reaction of the UAC’s opponents on the active Union’s position, aimed at stimulating agrarian sector. A special disaffection among pro-oligarchic political forces aroused the UAC’s position regarding oilseeds, as the Union since the end of last year has been actively endeavoring the adoption of the Draft Law No. 7403-2 by the Verkhovna Rada which is aimed to return VAT refunds for the export of soybeans and rapeseed. However, parliamentarians are still delaying   and completely blocking   consideration of this document.

In order to demystify the operation of UAC, the Chairman of the Union explained how UAC carries out and finances its activities.

"We are not-for-profit organization, we are not funded by the state, and we did not take a penny from the budget. We exist at the expense of membership fees and are funded by our members. If you ask who our members are, you can easily find this information at free access on our website. The Ukrainian Agrarian Council is an officially registered public union, we have our own account and officially receive funds ", - said A. Dykun.

The chairman of the UAC also added that it is not a problem to make a denial of fake news, which in recent weeks has been actively disseminating in the media, regarding cooperation of the Public Union and personally, Myhailo Sokolov with Russian specialist forces. In particular, some publications in their articles, probably ordered order by the UAC’s opponents, provided fake information that Sokolov is a citizen of the Russian Federation. However, in reality, he has Ukrainian citizenship and for more than ten years lives with his family in our country.
Therefore, the Ukrainian Agrarian Council sincerely advises journalists before publishing to check the information carefully, in order not to mislead people and not to play up to  the oligarchic structures in their predatory actions.

Background information. The “Ukrainian Agrarian Council” Public Union is a voluntary, non-governmental organization that is created to protect legitimate social and economic interests of its members. The UAC cooperates with international financial organizations, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, Deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of the Committee on Agrarian Policy and Land Relations and other parliamentary political forces.

Decision of the Interdepartmental Commission on International Trade to increase the antidumping duty to 42.96% on imports of ammonia nitrate from Russia to Ukraine has nothing to do with protection of national interests and once again will lead to the price increase of nitrogen fertilizers on the domestic market. Also it will stimulate growth of Russian revenues because of sailing  natural gas and ammonia. As a result, domestic farmers are subject to multibillion-dollar losses, while the Ostchem group, owned by a businessman Dmitry Firtash, will be able to pay off the debt to Russian “Gazprom” PJSC at the farmer’s expense.

The point is that the Ostchem Group uses Russian natural gas or ammonia as a raw material to produce fertilizers.

"Taking into account the current level of prices in the domestic market the Ostchem Group either has already worked more than cost-effective and does not require additional protection, or because of production ineffectiveness spends on Russian raw materials the same or even more than the cost of Russian fertilizers in the international market", - noted Myhailo Sokolov, the Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council (UAC).

Thus, strengthening measures against import of fertilizers and price increase may lead to the situation that Ukraine would have to pay for Russian natural gas, albeit re-exported from the EU, or for ready-made Russian ammonia as much or even more than for Russian fertilizer. Moreover, it is necessary to take into considerations that the Ostchem was created at the expense of the loan taking at the Russian Gazprombank, where “Gazprom” PJSC acted as a guarantor. The decision would allow the Ostshem Group to return almost 1 billion USD debts to the aggressor country at the expense of farmers who are forced to overpay for fertilizer.

"In fact, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade has neglected its duty to take into account also the interests of Ukrainian farmers but not only national producers of fertilizers.  All the more so because contribution  of the agrarian sector to national GDP is 14% and far exceeds the contribution of the entire chemical industry. It is therefore impossible to speak of any struggle with the aggressor country. Given the return of Dmytro Firtash's debt to Gazprombank, we will pay to Russia more but not less" - said M. Sokolov.

According to him, authorities choose a wrong track solving all the problems at the expense of farmers. At the same time, the Government constantly blocks implementation of measures that would allow Ukraine to use PRC experience and reduce or completely abandon usage of natural gas in the production of nitrogen fertilizers. That would allow Ukraine increase profitability without boosting domestic prices. Ukraine has not used a tied credit provided by the People's Republic of China to build synthetic gas plants that would produce fertilizers from Ukrainian gas-coal.

According to the "Institute of Agrarian Economics" National Science Center, each hectare of Ukrainian land annually loses from 200 to 400 kg of nutrients due to the insufficient use of mineral fertilizers. In turn, according to a survey conducted by the "Social Monitoring" Center, farmers do not apply enough fertilizers because of the high price.

"Thus, the decision to increase anti-dumping duties on ammonium nitrate does not only lead to the growth of  Gazprom's and Gazprombank's revenues, but also to the further depletion of Ukrainian soils," - said M. Sokolov.

Background information. In March 26, the Interdepartmental Commission for International Trade decided to extend the anti-dumping measures on import of ammonium nitrate from the Russian Federation into Ukraine increasing duties on imports of ammonium nitrate from Russia up to 42.96%.

According to the research conducted by the national science center «Institute of Agrarian Economics", the consulting agency "UkrAgroConsult" as well as the "Social Monitoring" Center, at the request of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, annual loss of the domestic agrarian sector accounts 32 billion UAH due to the reduction in yields that is a result of high prices for nitrogen fertilizers.

In addition, according to the consulting agency "AAA", due to the high prices agrarians annually overpay for nitrogen fertilizers about 5 billion UAN.

3. The vast majority of milk producers oppose this year's mechanisms of state support to the sector of livestock breeding because of the "manual" distribution of budget funds through special regional commissions.

Such an attitude showed a vote which was held among the participants of the XI Dairy Congress. The event was attended by 1200 industry representatives, including 760 producers from 280 leading dairy farms in Ukraine.

"Today in this hall there are more than half of the of the domestic dairy market representatives from all corners of our State. Therefore, the sample is representative. Consequently voting results  give a deep understanding of how farmers evaluate results of the work of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and treat procedures of subsidies distribution approved by the Government", - said Andriy Dykun, Chairman of the UAC .

Thus, according to the vote results 93.2% of milk producers expressed their negative attitude towards approved by the Cabinet of Ministers   state support distribution for agro-industry in 2018. Instead, according to 74.03% of the milk producers, the ideal state aid program could be a subsidy payment of 1 UAH of subsidized products sold. About 14.3% of producers prefer to pay a subsidy per 1 hectare engaged in growing subsidized crops.

Meanwhile, 97.44% of manufacturers indicated that they prefer automatic subsidies payment, the volume of which is proportional to the proceeds - the so-called "quasi-accumulation of VAT"  but together  with a number of amendments that were proposed by the Ukrainian Agrarian Council in the middle of last year. Only 2.6% of the congressmen expressed support for other types of state support distributed through regional commissions.

80% of milk producers are convinced that if distributing state subsidies through regional commissions, agrarians would have to face corruption in the form of extortion of "kickbacks." About half of the farmers were faced with similar cases in previous years. According to 50% of respondents, the size of "kickback" for such a practice was 20-30%. A little less than a half of manufacturers (46,4%) indicated that   the amount of “kickbacks” was above  10%. And 3.6% of the industry representatives had to face with a requirement to pay bribes in the amount of 30-40% to the regional commissions.

In addition, about half of the congress participants have once again noted that this year's state support programs for livestock breeding are ineffective.

According to Mikhail Sokolov, the Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, the current year the Government allocated 6.3 billion UAH to the agrarian sector in comparison to 5.5 billion UAH in 2017. In particular, this year the Cabinet of Ministers directed 4 billion UAH to support animal farming in Ukraine. However, according to the expert, despite the fact that total state aid increased in 2018 in comparison to the previous year, agricultural producers will not actually receive these subsidies. That is due to the approved mechanism of state support which as always works in favor some of oligarchic companies.

Serhii Labasuk, People's Deputy of Ukraine,"People's Freedom" faction, said that in order to allocate budget funds effectively, such a factor as an “official” should be excluded from the mechanism as participation of civil servants creates additional corruption risks.

Vadym Ivchenko, People's Deputy ,All-Ukrainian Union  “Batkivschyna”, encouraged the Government to communicate with players of the agrarian market, as only together we will be able to develop a truly effective mechanism of state support that will promote development of the industry.

In addition, Dmitro Linko and Oksana Prodan (People's Deputies Radical Party and correspondently «BPP") joined the debate.  In their speeches they stressed the importance of effective state support and encouragement to develop a dairy sector.

In its turn, Olga Trofimtseva, Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, also took part in the round-table discussion and presented the Government's vision of state support to live stock breeding   in 2018.

This discussion took place during the National Roundtable on "State Support to the Livestock Industry", which was held within the framework of the XI Dairy Congress. For eleven years now, the Dairy Congress is the main event of the dairy sector in Ukraine, which annually gets together dairy managers, People's Deputies and leading industry experts.