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Ukraine receives considerable attention at BIOFACH 2017

Representatives of the organic movement in a group picture in the Ukrainian Pavilion.

Ukrainian Pavilion at BioFach 2017 with representatives of the public and private sector of the organic movement, FiBL and other partners. Photo: Consortium Ques/OS/Green Dossier Information Center

The FiBL director talks to the deputy minister.

Urs Niggli in discussion with Olga Trofimtseva, deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine for European Integration. Photo: Consortium Ques/OS/Green Dossier Information Center

Ukrainian Pavilion at BioFach with attendees and stand personnel.

Ukrainian Pavilion at BioFach 2017 with 17 Ukrainian companies. Photo: Consortium Ques/OS/Green Dossier Information Center

Seventeen Ukrainian companies participated as exhibitors at the BIOFACH Fair 2017 in Nuremberg, Germany, the biggest trade fair for organic products worldwide, with more than 2,500 exhibitors from almost 90 countries. The companies offered a wide range of organic products, including cereals, oil crops, pulses, sunflower seeds and oil, essential oils, groats and flakes, wild and cultivated berries and berry paste as well as certification services. The Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) has supported the Ukrainian organic sector since 2004 and the Ukrainian pavilion at BIOFACH since 2014 in the framework of the Swiss-Ukrainian project "Organic Market Development in Ukraine", funded by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO)

(Frick, 22 February 2017) "The Ukrainian Pavilion at BIOFACH was a great success" according to Ksenia Gladchenko, from QueS consultancy, one of the three organizers of the Pavilion. "Our stall with 17 Ukrainian companies attracted many visitors, and our special forum ‘Ukraine as a reliable supplier of organic products’ was very well attended and attracted around 120 participants: we even had to add extra rows of chairs for the event to provide enough seating for everyone."

As the demand for organic food products is continuously expanding worldwide, especially in Europe and the U.S., Ukraine is gaining in importance. "There is hardly another country that has similarly good production conditions for organic crop production", explains Toralf Richter from FiBL Switzerland. "The same is true for the sourcing of wild-collected berries and medicinal herbs or the production of birch juice." According to Sergiy Galashevskyy from the Ukrainian certification body Organic Standard, organic exports from Ukraine are increasing very rapidly as more and more farms are converting to organic production: "We estimate that, in the past 9 months, Ukraine has exported more than 250,000 tons of organic produce to EU countries."

"It is great to see the growing interests among Ukrainian organic stakeholders in visiting BIOFACH and using it not just as a platform to exhibit their products, but also to share and learn from each other and people from other countries. More than 300 people from Ukraine attended BIOFACH this year", says Kateryna Shor from the Green Dossier Information Center, an environmental NGO. This growing interest also extends to the Ukrainian government. With the presence of the Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine on European Integration, Olga Trofimtseva, there is also clear commitment from the government to promote organic agriculture within the country. With her contribution to the session ‘Sourcing from Central and Eastern Europe – risks and benefits’ and the special Ukraine Forum, she emphasized the government’s commitment to promote organic agriculture within Ukraine in a way that will make organic production and trade more attractive, safer and more transparent.

The majority of the Ukrainian National Pavilion was financed in 2017 by the exhibiting companies and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO, Switzerland)  through the framework of the Swiss-Ukrainian project ‘Organic Market Development in Ukraine’ (www.ukraine.fibl.org) implemented by FiBL Switzerland (www.fibl.org). SECO has supported this pavilion for four years since 2014, when Ukraine first attended with its own pavilion. In 2017, the pavilion was also co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) through the two German-Ukrainian cooperation projects ‘Advice to Ukraine on agricultural trade issues under the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) between the EU and Ukraine and ‘German-Ukrainian cooperation in the field of organic agriculture’, both implemented by AFC Agriculture and Finance Consultants GmbH (www.afci.de) and IAK Agrar Consulting GmbH (www.iakleipzig.de). The Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF) funded by the U.S. government via the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID, www.wnisef.org) also supported the exhibition in 2017 for the first time.

The Ukrainian National Pavilion was organized and coordinated by a Consortium of three Ukrainian key organic stakeholders: QueS Organic Consultancy Body (www.ques.com.ua), Organic Standard Certification Body (www.organicstandard.com.ua) and the Green Dossier Information Center (www.dossier.org.ua).

The Ukrainian Biofach 2017 exhibitors:

  • Adonis-Lux, Zaporizhzhia region (Tobias Eisenring, FiBL Switzerland
  • Ksenia Gladchenko, Coordinator of Ukrainian Pavilion at Biofach, phone +380 93 917 29 89, info(at)ques.com.ua

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