The amount of funds under the compensation program for the cost of agricultural machinery and equipment increased to UAH 945 mln.

From UAH 6.3 bln of the 2018 State Budget that is aimed to support of the agro-industrial complex, UAH 945 mln will be allocated to the compensation program for the cost of agricultural machinery and equipment. The funding amount for these purposes increased by 42 % compared to last year (UAH 550 mln in 2017).

Last year, domestic agrarians used only 24% of the compensation program for the cost of equipment, which is a little more than UAH 134 mln. Under this program, domestic agrarians purchased about 80 tractors, 1 grain harvester and more than 2000 units of tillage and seeding machinery for total amount of UAH 804.3 mln.

According to Oleh Nesterov, Coordinator of Agricultural Machinery Committee of the Association «Ukrainian Agribusiness Club», the increase in programme funding almost twice seems illogical even taking into account the fact that the machinery market increased last year: «The preconditions for a significant increase in demand for domestic machinery are not observed, especially against the backdrop of the growth of agricultural machinery imports by domestic producers. Thus, in 10 months of 2017, the supplies of tractors, combines of foreign production to Ukraine increased by 1.6 times and the shipments of tillage machinery doubled. Even taking into account the general trend of the growth of machinery market, only half of the allocated funds will be used».

The position of the UCAB Agricultural Machinery Committee regarding the state support program is to amend the existing order of funds distribution. The main thing offered by UCAB is to expand the list of machinery and equipment falling within the compensation program. «Having almost UAH 1 bln for technical re-equipment for producers, it is doubtful that it will be used by 100 and even 60% for these purposes, given the level of using the funds last year. Therefore, we propose to expand the list of machinery and equipment falling within the compensation program. For example, add to it unmanned aerial vehicles/drone or equipment for grain elevators», - said Oleh Nesterov, Coordinator of UCAB Agricultural Machinery Committee.