DESPITE THE WAR – CONTINUOUS SUPPORT TO UKRAINE’S AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD SECTOR

AFC’s activities in Ukraine comprise two projects one year after the Russian war started. The German Food Bridge brings emergency aid, while the German-Ukrainian Cooperation in Organic Agriculture strengthens the country on a longterm basis.

Extreme conditions caused by air and land attacks, the partial occupation of farms, the lack of inputs or the loss of workers due to conscription into the army dominate the current situation of the Ukrainian agricultural sector. Moreover, in the areas where fighting has taken place and is still ongoing, there is permanent danger of mines. In addition, many areas are contaminated with pollutants from the fighting. Nevertheless, agricultural production continued in Ukraine from the beginning of the war. This is only possible because the population is accepting great hardships, the frontal attack by Russia on their culture and their system and threatening their lives.

Agriculture is the basis of the nutrition. It is also a major export and thus economic variable, specifically for the future of foreign direct investment inflows for the country. In the view of reconstructing the country as well as of global food security in general, the importance and relevance of supportive projects remains and rises.

Since 2015, AFC is continuously implementing projects in Ukraine. At the moment, two main projects funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) cover emergency aid as well as long-term structural support for the agricultural sector.

In the beginning of March 2022 and only days after the start of the Russian war against Ukraine, the German Food Bridge was created bringing food aid quickly to where it is most urgently needed. Until the end of 2022 and as part of the bilateral cooperation project “Agritrade Ukraine”, it has been embedded into the project “German-Ukrainian Agricultural Policy Dialogue (APD)” since January 2023. The team acquires donations from food producers, retailers and other initiatives and supports the organisations by coordinating the pick-up and delivery of the donated goods from their warehouses mostly in Germany to Ukraine. The German Food Bridge established a unique supply chain in cooperation with the freight forwarding company DB Cargo Transa, a Polish logistics hub in Dębica and a network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). DB Cargo Transa delivers the donated goods from Germany to the Polish hub. In Dębica, the goods are temporarily stored. Local NGOs pick them up and deliver them to the civilians in the war-injured regions.

As of February 2023, around around 100 companies and institutions have already donated approximately 500 truckloads comprising over 14,000 pallets of food and other emergency aid products. Besides the network of over 50 NGOs, especially in the first months, the initiative closely cooperated with the Polish Governmental Agency for Strategic Reserves, which provided temporary storage capacities in their hubs and organised the delivery via rail. Other partners of the initiative are the GermanUkrainian Chamber of Commerce, the German-Polish Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the DELTA Production and Trade Company, which have established the hub in Dębica, Poland.

Launched in 2016, the second intervention, the “GermanUkrainian Cooperation in Organic Agriculture (COA) “, strengthens the legislative and structural framework of organic agriculture. Nowadays, active participation in activities are to build up and support aid measures in Ukraine. Despite extremely critical conditions in the country, it has already been possible to help effectively and quickly in a short time. The foundation for further engagement has been laid. The project’s existing networks with organic farming organisations and activists in Germany turned out as very helpful.

Activities included actively approaching German organisations and companies to acquire food donations, which met with a very positive response. Until February 2023, about 1,100 pallets of food and hygiene articles have been collected and transported to Ukraine via the initiative www.deine-ukrainehilfe.de. Furthermore, fundraising campaigns were started to support more than 3,000 refugees that have currently found shelter on farms of the organisations “Permaculture” and “Ecovillages” as well as a biodynamic farm near Lviv. More than EUR 20,000 have been raised so far.

In addition, COA initiated a fundraising campaign with GLS Treuhand’s Future Foundation for Agriculture and developed a concept for the individual relief measures for which the donations are to be used. Nearly EUR 600,000 have been collected. For the future, COA will support the campaign through its expertise on organic farming and direct contacts with farms, while the administration of donations will be coordinated by the foundation. A special focus will be on small and mediumsized farms in Ukraine. Organic organisations were also helped with batteries and solar panels that were delivered, so that many electricity outages can be bridged.

Next to the emergency aid measures, COA continues strengthening the institutional environment of the sector, for example by analysing the economic impact of the Ukrainian Organic Law and by elaborating and publishing a guide to the main changes in the new organic regulation in EU countries. Also, practical advice is given by COA. The practical guide on mechanical weed control will be useful for agricultural producers regardless of farming methods. It provides the necessary basic agritechnical knowledge and practical examples as a prerequisite for successful weed control by mechanical methods. The guide is one of more than 400 documents published on COA’s organic knowledge platform (www.organic-platform.org), the first and only knowledge management tool in Ukrainian language on organic agriculture. Moreover, our team advocates for the Ukrainian organic sector on international events such as the organic trade fair Biofach or the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture 2023 that both took place in Germany (for further information see p. 20).

Since the ongoing war leads to the conclusion that Ukraine will need even more international support in the future, AFC is well positioned for tasks and challenges to come. Together with our partner IAK Leipzig in all projects in Ukraine, we continue our efforts to stand with Ukraine and to build up activities aiming at direct aid as well as at long-term reconstruction.

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