Country Overview
Ukraine is a country about the size of the state of Texas, located between Poland and Russia and bordered on the south by the Black Sea. Ukraine’s agriculture, based on some of the most fertile soils in the world, once fed a substantial part of Europe’s population. With help from CNFA’s Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers Ukraine’s farmers and agribusinesses are making the transition to democracy and a market economy.

CNFA in Ukraine
CNFA sent its first Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer to Ukraine in 1993, shortly after the country gained independence from the Soviet Union. Since then, volunteers have worked in a wide variety of areas. The focus areas of our current work in Ukraine is to help farmers increase their incomes by improving their access to markets, their access to credit and their access to agricultural inputs. These focus areas are outlined below.

Our Strategy
1. Increase Farmers’ Incomes by Improving Their Access to Markets.

CNFA Program Coordinator Olena Kovalska visits the Ukrainian Ostrich Association

Since independence, Ukraine has dismantled its system of collective farms and has created millions of independent small-scale farms and agribusinesses. These producers have little experience with commercial agriculture and responding to market demands. CNFA^®’s Farmer-to-Farmer (FtF) volunteers help them adapt by offering training in how to access markets, produce with markets in mind, and understand the benefits of increased entrepreneurship. FtF volunteers provide training in:

• Commercial vegetable production.
• Gathering and analyzing market information.
• Producing to market specifications.
• Contract negotiations with potential buyers.
• Organizing into groups to increase leverage in the market (i.e., obtaining better prices on bulk input purchases and product sales to markets).
• Membership expansion, service development, and dues collection in cooperatives/associations.
• Financial record keeping and analysis.
• Writing marketing and business plans.

2. Increase Farmers’ Incomes by Improving Access to Sustainable Business Development Training and Credit

Lack of access to credit to fund investments is one of the greatest challenges for the Ukrainian agricultural sector. Many lenders have cumbersome application procedures, high requirements for collateral and lack the background knowledge of agriculture necessary to assess the risks of agricultural loans. For these reasons, many lenders don’t lend to small agricultural clients, which cuts many agribusinesses off from investment capital. FtF volunteers work to solve this problem by helping commercial lenders either expand their lending businesses into agriculture or to improve the agricultural lending operations that they already have. FtF volunteers provide training to commercial lenders in:

• Risk assessment of agricultural loans.
• Development of agricultural lending products.
• Staff incentive plan development for agricultural lenders.
• Financial management for agricultural lenders.
• Training for agricultural loan officers.  

Workers at Yahotyn Cannery pack cucumbers for pickling

CNFA Volunteer Peter Ferreti inspects the fields with members Vinnytsya Farmers Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Increase Farmers’ Incomes by Increasing Their Access to Input Supply

The input supply system that the old collective farms used doesn’t work for Ukraine’s new generation of market-oriented agribusinesses. The country needs new local farm input retailers, and lots of them. These retailers are emerging but they typically lack both technical and business development skills. As a result, they are having trouble establishing strong relationships with input supply companies and serving their customers’ needs.  

To speed the development of the small farmer input supply system, CNFA^® is offering input retailers selected by Ukraine’s leading input supply companies an Agrodealer Business Management Training (ABMT) Program.  The goal of ABMT is to provide input retailers the business management, development, and marketing skills they need to get the right inputs for the right tasks into the hands of small agribusinesses.
ABMT volunteers will train Input Retailers in:

• Business Planning
• Salesmanship
• Financial Management
• Inventory Control
• Retail Management

To see a list of current volunteer opportunities in Ukraine, click here.

Please click here for volunteer resources on Ukraine.

JOIN US IN UKRAINE!

Please click here to read Success Stories from Ukraine.

Please click here for information on Farmer-to-Farmer Program Impact in Ukraine.

To read more (in Ukrainian) about CNFA projects in Ukraine, please see the CNFA-Ukraine website.

For FtF contact information please click here.