In 2020/21 MY, Ukraine had to import milling wheat from Belarus for the first time in its history, declared Rodion Rybchinskiy, Head of Millers of Ukraine, within Grain&Maritime Days in Odessa-2021 on May 26.
“It happened not because Ukraine ran out of wheat. The price situation on both the Ukrainian and the global markets was the reason”, - he said.
He added that the flour produced from Belarusian wheat got better quality compared to the local one.
Annually, Ukrainian processors try to motivate farmers to cultivate wheat of higher quality, and every year they lose competition to traders.
“Everyone understands, the agricultural companies producing raw material get 20 times higher profit than the companies trading with flour. But its farming activity that is core for the quality of a finished product”, - R.Rybchinskiy pointed out adding that the climate changes and the need to take the related measures (improvement of agricultural technologies, seeds, etc.) had been discussed as long as in 2005. Everyone had said the problem would rise quickly and would turn into the urgent one.
