The concluding VIII International Conference ‘Doing Agribusiness’ organized by the Association ‘Ukrainian Agribusiness Club’ and AgriEvent Agency took place on 8 December.  An aim of the event was to improve understanding by the Ukrainian agricultural producers of internal and external factors affecting their activity in 2017. The event was attended by approximately 300 representatives of the leading agricultural companies and industry experts.

The conference program consisted of 7 sessions dedicated to the topical subjects in 2016: Land Management, ‘Crisis’ Logistics in Agricultural Sector, Agricultural Export: Where are We Heading? , Innovative Technologies in Agribusiness, Taxes and Finance: What to expect in 2017? and Corporate Responsibility. This year's conference revolved around the state policy and impact of the major legislative changes on agricultural sector, since the state regulates key components and areas affecting the efficiency of agricultural production. Thus, at present time the state holds a monopoly on logistics; signs international agreements on access to foreign markets influencing directly sales of products; establishes ‘rules’ for application of state-of-the-art technology (including biotechnology); regulates land and financial issues.

Peculiarities of this year's conference were described by Taras Vysotskyi, the General Director of Association ‘Ukrainian Agribusiness Club’: ‘Having analyzed the current situation in agricultural sector in Ukraine, we decided to focus on the most pressing issues that are crucial to its further functioning and development. Besides the general discussion of regulatory changes and upcoming trends in a wide range of industry representatives, the event also involved a number of industry-oriented discussions aimed at creating highly specialized professional platform for exchange of experience among the best experts’.

During the first session Volker Sasse, Team Leader of the Project ‘German-Ukrainian Policy Dialogue in Agriculture’, presented a modern scientific tool to conduct quantitative assessment of the policy decisions impact on the development of Ukrainian agricultural sector based on a model for predicting effects of agrarian policy, AGMEMOD Partnership: ‘This model allows to predict and evaluate the annual influence of policy decisions taken in agricultural sector of the EU countries, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan and the rest of the world’.

During session ‘Land Management’ the issues concerning land bank, land inventory, implementation of the escheat property regulations were discussed. Oksana Kryzhanivska, partner and attorney of ALEXANDROV & PARTNERS, in her report raised various outstanding issues regarding formation of the land bank: ‘The first-order problem in the formation of land bank is a moratorium. Owing to this, the situation when there is a high competitive fight for the lease right and favour of shareholders exists in Ukraine. The lack of available lands as well as high marginality of agricultural business establish a field for unfair competition. The situations of unauthorized occupation of land plots and

During logistics session the experts stressed that the agricultural season was successful but proved to be extremely difficult because of the difficulties related to grain transportation. When discussing the topic of crisis logistics in the AIC, Olena Melnyk, logistics manager of Kernel, advised how to minimize losses of agricultural companies under the current conditions: ‘The most appropriate way is to perform in-depth analysis of existing problems and solutions that the company's management is in position to implement directly or indirectly as well as identify factors which cannot be affected by the business. The next step is to develop a system of measures aimed at reducing forecasted risks to the extent possible. These measures include organization of ‘round tables’, establishment of communication between holding companies, meetings with representatives of motor and railway carriers, elevator units and ports. Exchange of views between all links of agricultural logistic chain will undoubtedly have a positive impact on strategic decisions making’. In addition, Olena Melnyk noted that optimization of internal logistics processes of agricultural companies as well as implementation of innovative technologies and new approaches to harvesting campaign will be also an essential step.

Simultaneously in another hall the experts were sharing their views concerning the prospects for agricultural exports. In particular, the probability of opening ‘exotic’ markets in the Indo-Chinese region and Sub-Saharan African countries was discussed. In 2015 Ukraine exported food to these countries in the amount of USD 337 million that is less than 1% of their total imports. Grain crops in the amount of USD 204 million and sunflower oil in the amount of USD 74 million made the basis of export. South Africa, Ethiopia and Djibouti became the largest importers of the Ukrainian products. However, the potential volume of export to this region for Ukraine constitutes USD 1.5 billion. Ukrainian products can cover 60% of the total wheat import to this region, 15% of poultry import and can fully meet the demand for corn and sunflower oil.

The topic ‘Innovative Technologies in Agribusiness’ was another issue for dynamic discussion. Optimization of yielding capacity, increase of efficiency and reduction of risks are the key assignments for the Ukrainian agricultural producers. Participants of the conference learned more about digital technologies and how combination of continuous collecting of field and meteorological data with agronomic modeling can be useful.

Financial and economic situation as well as fiscal control affect, without any doubt, the agricultural production throughout all its stages and, therefore, one of the sessions was devoted to this topic. During panel discussion ‘Taxes and Finance: What to expect in 2017?’ the experts raised the issue concerning implementation of effective financial solutions and strategies for the agricultural business. In addition, during session Oleksiy Omelianenko, the IFC representative, advised about agrarian receipts as an effective credit facility for agricultural producers. In particular, he noted that as of today in Ukraine 60 agrarian receipts were issued by means of which more than UAH 189 million was involved. The participants also discussed global and local legal trends as well as their impact on taxes and finance.

Wijnand Broer, CREM (the Netherlands), was a key speaker at the session ‘Corporate Responsibility’. Issued related to corporate social responsibility, CSR trends in agribusiness, its role in access to the markets as well as instruments and initiatives were in the focus of attention. During the second practical part the participants conducted SWOT-analysis of CSR which was accompanied by the discussion.

Within the framework of VIII International Conference ‘Doing Agribusiness in Ukraine’ the Association ‘Ukrainian Agribusiness Club’ highlighted achievements of the best agricultural producers showing impressive results during the harvesting of 2016. Award for agronomic efficiency ‘Harvest work-2016’ was presented in 9 categories to the winners among UCAB members.

 Association

‘Ukrainian Agribusiness Club’

 146 Zhylianska Str., 3^rd floor

01032 Kyiv, Ukraine

Tel/Fax: +380 44 236 20 97, 79

[email protected]

www.ucab.ua

Viktoriia Onykiienko

 Association ‘Ukrainian Agribusiness Club’ (UCAB), , was founded in 2007 to protect economic and professional interests of the agribusiness players of Ukraine. UCAB is a unique platform in Ukraine for establishing business contacts between the agribusiness leaders, enhancing their performance efficiency as well as building dialogue with the government authorities. UCAB greatly facilitates establishing and maintaining international business relations for the Ukrainian producers. The Association includes the largest producers and processors of agricultural products in Ukraine