Ukraine ambassador encourages Irish farm links

MANY Irish farmers are renting huge areas of land in the Ukraine, said Borys Bazylevskyi, the Central European country’s ambassador in Ireland, during a recent Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs debate.

Mr Bazylevskyi said he met the leadership of the Irish Farmers’ Association recently, and discussed new possibilities for co-operation in agriculture. “The Ukraine has a large area with good soil that can be cultivated. Many Irish farmers are interested in growing grain crops in the Ukraine, and importation into Ireland,” Mr Bazylevskyi said.

The Ukraine has almost 30% of the world’s high-yielding chernozem soil, and is the world’s fifth-largest grain exporter, and rated third for the exportation of wheat.

“In our relations with Ireland, the sector that should be very productive is agriculture” said the ambassador.

A British company, Landkom International, is one of the biggest overseas operators in the Ukraine, farming some 8,000 hectares there.