When we talk about feeding a growing world population, part of the solution involves maximizing the potential of all of the worlds existing agricultural land base. Certain countries in the world are looked upon to be the future of agricultural production. This list of “up and coming” nations includes Ukraine. Vast tracks of land with mega corporate farmers operating the landscape of agriculture has similarities to Canada but major differences as well.
One of those areas that is developing it’s potential is Ukraine. It has the largest agricultural land base in Europe and is one of the worlds largest exporters of ag commodities and still has 15 to 20 percent of that land yet to be developed.
The structure under which that development occurs is corporate rather than individual. Corporate rights are purchased from Agro Companies that rent the land to farm. The race to gather large pods of land is a very aggressive game of capitalism. Those smaller companies in turn are bought up by larger holding companies who handle the selling and marketing. One of those companies is Harmelia Holdings.
John Shmorhun is CEO of Harmelia Holdings. John spoke at FarmTech 2012 about the opportunities for the Ukraine on the world agriculture stage. I talked to him about some of those opportunities and the challenges that go along with farming in Ukraine at FarmTech 2012 in Edmonton, Alberta. I think that you find the conversation with John quite interesting.
If you cannot see the embedded video below click here.