Ukrainian farmers should take into account the experience of Western countries, where the cooperative movement plays an important role in the overall agricultural business. For example, in the Netherlands, cooperatives account for up to 70% of the agricultural sector.

This opinion was expressed by Sergey Barybin, head of the Ukrainian Agro Connection agricultural cooperative, Kurkul.com reports.

“Cooperation is not just a temporary benefit for small agricultural enterprises and farms. This is the most effective model for their survival and successful competition with large agricultural holdings. But it is difficult for a small farm to get competitive prices for the resources needed to carry out field work and sell their products,” he commented.

Sergei Barybin noted that the idea was to create a cooperative to provide an opportunity for small agricultural enterprises to unite and receive the same benefits in joint purchases of fuel, seed, plant protection products that large agricultural holdings now have.

In addition, members of the cooperative can get attractive prices and conditions for the sale of finished products by combining small batches of grain into lots, which are already becoming interesting for trading companies.

Despite the fact that the cooperative was established at the end of May last year, Ukrainian Agro Connection was able to organize a number of profitable trading operations for its members, both for the purchase of diesel fuel and for the sale of products - at a price of almost 100 UAH / t higher than they were offered elevators. and traders.

“We also helped the members of our cooperative find new partners and provide harvesting services with temporarily free agricultural machinery. Taking into account the shortage of harvesters that arose last year due to weather conditions, this service turned out to be very necessary and allowed some members of the cooperative to receive additional profit, and others to save the crop,” the expert said.

V emphasized that thanks to such a partner as A.G.R. Group, owned by Misak Hidiran, the cooperative does not need to spend years building relationships with suppliers and traders. Already now there is an opportunity to provide members of the Ukrainian Agro Connection with the conditions of purchase and sale, available only to large agricultural enterprises.

Kurkul.com