The harvesting campaign of spring grain crops has started in the southern regions of Ukraine. However, unfavorable weather conditions - droughts, downpours, floods, frosts - damaged crops, and because of it farmers in the South suffered catastrophic losses. In particular, 385 thousand hectares of agricultural crops were lost because of drought. Odesa region suffered the most, where a third of all winter crops were lost.

According to the words of Yurii Yalovchuk, the Chairman of LLC “Kolos” from the Velykomykhailivskyi district of Odesa region, 400 hectares from the harvest of 1,000 hectares of winter crops are lost. In other areas, it is collected selectively. They have a yield of barley 5-6 quintals per 1 ha, peas - about 5 quintals per 1 ha, to talk wheat, then hope for 10 quintals per 1 ha. Rapeseeds on 70 hectares were lost completely.

"A complete minus. We sow about 2 quintals per 1 hectare, and collected 4-5 quintals, so, about what kind of income can we talk? Complete collapse. Nobody cares how we will get away with it - pay taxes, rent. I think we will take a loan and pay. There is no other way out, the situation is too critical. It is very insulting that we were promised help, people collected documents, made all the calculations, and we were just thrown at random." - the farmer says.

The LLC “Yenikioy” from Odesa Region lost one third of winter crops. From 5 thousand hectares of winter areas, 1.5 thousand hectares were lost. They have a harvest at the level of 3-6 quintals from 1 hectare of grain.

"In a usual year, our investment cost was 5 tons per 1 hectare. And we collected 7 tons, so we had a profit on 2 tons. Last year, 5 tons were invested and 2.5 tons were collected. We’d lost 30 million hryvnas on two farms.” - Oleh Sulakov, the head of the farm said.

Mykolaiv region have suffered too. However, many farms saved their crops through irrigation. According to the words of Oleksandr Klepach, the Chairman of LLC “Technologia-Agro”, whose company cultivates land in the Snihuriv district, 70-80% of his land - is irrigated one. This made it possible to harvest at the level of 40 per 1 hectare.

Other agricultural producers in the South, in order to escape the drought, use new soil tillage technologies that allow them to accumulate moisture.

"We have no irrigation. There was a drought, but thanks to the soil tillage technology, which we used - it affected us less. Mice caused more damage. Grain, sunflower and rape were badly damaged. We have the same situation in other districts. The winter was warm, without precipitation, frosts, and they propagated themselves” - the Chairman of LLC "Berehynia" from Kherson region Victor Derkach said.

Bad weather conditions - drought, frost - also harmed Zaporizhia region.

"We hadn’t problems with crop losses before. The rains passed, but when the plant was already in the fast growing stage. If they had passed a week or two earlier, there would have been a different situation. So far, the yield at the level of previous years - from 44 quintals per 1 hectare is the average. Although, in the south of the region (Tokmatsk, Chernihiv, Berbyansk districts) there are farms that are in a very bad situation with grain” – Roman Panyovin, the Chairman of "ALKAIR" (Vasylkiv district, Zaporizhia region) said.

UAC has repeatedly raised the issue of partial compensation for losses to farms, which were harmed because of bad weather conditions and proposed strict steps how funds can be allocated from the state budget.

In particular, part of the funds from the program of financial support to the agricultural sector, for which 4 billion UAH have been allocated in 2020, can be used to compensate farmers’ losses. 1,2 billion UAH is provided for one of the sectors of this program - "Financial support of measures in the agro-industrial complex by reducing the cost of loans." These funds are intended to compensate for interest on loans that farmers will take to purchase agricultural land. However, the launch of the land market instead of October 2020 should take place only in July 2021.

In such circumstances, most of the funds of this sector will not be used. Therefore, it is possible to amend this resolution by supplementing it with a new direction of use of budget funds - "Compensation for losses of agricultural producers from adverse weather conditions" while instructing the Ministry of Economic Development to direct most of the funds in this direction. Funds for agricultural producers can also be allocated from the reserve fund of the budget. The terms of use of such funds provide for their return. However, due to amendments to paragraph 11 “Of the Procedure for the use of the reserve fund of the budget” it is possible to provide for the allocation of funds on a non-refundable basis to the farms. In particular, in the situation of a threat to Ukraine's food security which is caused by the consequences of natural emergencies.

UAC calls on the Ministry of Economic Development, the Government and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to take into account these proposals and help agricultural producers, who are facing the threat of bankruptcy because of crop losses!