“Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Viktor Koval explained to UNIAN the recent words of the President regarding humanitarian aid for Syria. He also spoke about the reservation of farmers, new border blockades and product prices.”, — write: www.unian.ua
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his video message on December 14 stated that Ukraine is ready to help Syria with food (in particular, flour, grain, and oil) and generally contribute to the stabilization of the situation in this country.
“I instructed the government to establish the supply of food in cooperation with international organizations and those partners who can help,” said the head of state.
This, as well as the internal challenges of the Ukrainian agrarian sector, were told by Minister of Agriculture Viktor Koval in a blitz interview.
Can you reveal details about Ukraine’s plans to provide humanitarian aid to the Syrian rebels? What kind of assistance is provided, when will it happen and what is Ukraine’s interest in this matter? At the behest of the President of Ukraine, we are currently working out the logistical ways and possibilities of Ukraine for the supply of food to Syria.
I will say that Ukraine takes such a position that we should be where it is difficult. And it is important that we are the guarantor of food security in the whole world, that is why our farmers, our agrarians grow products so that they are delivered to those regions that need it most. Therefore, we are dealing with this issue.
Now the process of determining the need and possibilities of delivery is underway. Because we understand that our country did not even have diplomatic relations with the previous regime (Syria – UNIAN).
Today, the processes taking place in Syria show us that the country needs help. And we are preparing for delivery.
And which products are in the greatest need now? We see that the biggest need now from the Syrian side – at least from the information that comes to us – is flour, sugar, oil, food kits. And there is also a need for wheat.
In November, Polish farmers blocked the “Medyka-Sheghini” checkpoint. Do you expect new blocking of checkpoints by the Poles this winter, maybe even until the end of this year? We understand that many cases of border blocking were related to motives other than competition or the direction of supply of products.
Today we see that the export of products has recovered in historical ways. That is, in fact, we export 86% of our products through the ports of Great Odesa and the Danube ports. That is, we do not have such pressure on land borders with European countries.
At the same time, 55% of all agricultural products of Ukraine are exported to the European Union today. This is an important market for us. And once again, we emphasize that Ukrainians are ready to fulfill all the obligations we undertake regarding discipline in supplies in mutual trade.
How effectively is the system of reservation of workers in agriculture functioning, and are changes planned to ensure the stability of agricultural production? The system works, the criteria have been approved, and this is a comprehensive work at the level of regional military administrations, and according to the criteria defined for the national scale, that is, through the ministry. Of course, there are certain, let’s say, moments in the design, and the packages of documents do not always correspond to the cleanliness that should be, so we have cases when we finalize.
But it is important to say that the audit showed that the farmers took a responsible approach to filling out the documents, and the criteria prescribed in the Kabin resolution were mostly fulfilled.
By the end of 2024, the prices of food products are growing at a frantic pace. What are your expectations for prices in 2025?We understand that the more products we grow, the less pressure there will be on the price. Therefore, the ministry is working for the next year to make the gross collection bigger.
And a very important point is that price growth is not always a linear process. Many factors affect: production components, the price of these production components. This is about energy carriers, and about, for example, diesel fuel, etc. And it is very important to preserve the products, that is, we have to expand the number of vegetable storage facilities, the number of refrigerating capacities, so that the products are stored for a full season, and we deliver as much as possible to the final consumers.
Dmytro Petrovskyi