The Ukrainian Agricultural Council calls on the authorities to take measures to preserve their own production of buckwheat and to protect Ukrainian producers from the intervention of low-quality and cheap cereals originating from the Russian Federation.

"To protect the Ukrainian market, it is necessary to introduce anti-dumping duties on imports of buckwheat originating from the Russian Federation. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine should stimulate the production of buckwheat and protect the domestic producer through state support mechanisms. In addition, the State Service of Ukraine for Food and Consumer Protection should necessarily check the existing product on Ukrainian shelves to comply with DSTU standards due to the poor quality of imported cereals," said UAC chairman Andriy Dykun during a press conference in Kyiv, which took place on Tuesday, October 9.

According to him, because the aggressor country intentionally sells low-quality buckwheat on the Ukrainian market at low prices, domestic producers lose profitability and, consequently, economic motivation to further grow this culture. Already this year due to the intervention of low-quality cereals from Russia, the area under buckwheat crops in Ukraine has decreased almost twice (to 108 thousand hectares from 189 thousand hectares in 2017). Next year, farmers who specialize in growing buckwheat, predict further reduction of sown area - up to 40-50 thousand hectares.

As noted by the participant of the UAC, producer of buckwheat Mykola Malienko, who also attended the press conference, the fall in purchasing prices for buckwheat began last year against the backdrop of overproduction of this culture in the eastern neighbor. The fact is that in 2017, the buckwheat harvest in Russia amounted to more than 1.7 million tons, with domestic consumption reaching only 750 thousand tons.

"Last year due to the fact that the Ukrainian market was flooded with Russian buckwheat, the purchase prices for this product went down to 6-8 thousand UAH per ton. With the fact that in 2017, prices reached about 10-12 thousand UAH per ton," - said Malienko.

According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, in 2017, 15.9 thousand tons of grain were officially imported into Ukraine, of which 12.7 thousand were from the Russian Federation, and 17.3 thousand tons from Kazakhstan, which also supplies to Ukraine buckwheat groats of Russian production.

In this case, experts note that significant volumes of buckwheat groats were imported through semi-legal schemes. Therefore, according to analysts, the total import 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 groats. Thus, the share of Russian cereals in Ukrainian market has already reached about 45-50%.

As the director of the Bila Tserkva bakery plant Ivan Shilov added that Russian buckwheat is considerably inferior to domestic grains for vitamin and energy composition.

"Today the shelves of Ukrainian supermarkets are filled with Russian buckwheat. In appearance, it has the correct brown color, but this product is manufactured in violation of technology. We bought samples of buckwheat, which Ukrainians buy, and conducted an analysis in a certified laboratory. According to the results, the product under study in 9 out of 12 indicators does not meet the standards of quality DSTU ", - said Shilov.

He added that for diabetics, buckwheat is an indispensable product. In addition, further reduction of the crops of this culture will negatively affect the domestic industry of beekeeping, because the replacement of buckwheat as a honey plant do not exist.