Ukraine – even the Russian war can’t stop organic sector development

Summary in the original language of the document

Before the full scale war started in 2022, Ukraine had 42 million hectares under agricultural cultivation. According to monitoring by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine 422,299 hectares (about 1% of the total agricultural area) were certified organic in 2021. The Ukrainian organic sector has its origins in Soviet times in the 1970s, when a few pioneers started with notill farming. The movement really took off about 15-20 years ago, when the Swiss SECO-FiBL project, in close collaboration with local organic stakeholders and policy makers, facilitated Ukrainian organic sector development through knowledge-transfer, creating trade opportunities and strengthening networking. At the same time, a wider organic product offering and awareness creation activities resulted in the availability of organic products at supermarkets and increased demand for organic products in local markets, especially in large cities.
The article describes how the main organic stakeholders in Ukraine bravely continue to develop the production and marketing of organic goods and how the global network of solidarity with Ukrainian farmers and exporters has been grown over the period of war.