Organizers: NGO “Organic Ukraine”, Certification body “Organic Standard”, Information Center “Green Dossier”.
The conference has already become a traditional business event in the organic sector, more than 100 participants of the organic market were present — organic producers, representatives from retail chains, government bodies, international projects and embassies. The participants presented the results on production and distribution of organic products achieved this year and discussed further market development perspective.
“Considering the huge potential of the organic sector, I’m sure, that both the internal market and export of the products are going to demonstrate positive dynamics and growth with every year. The Ministry supports events like this, which turn into platforms for uniting the organic community, establishing business relations and searching for new distribution markets, — said Inna Meteleva, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine. — The organic sector remains an important field of government agriculture policy as it’s a very promising sphere and Ukraine has already become one of the main exporters of organic production. We are interested in the development of organic market and production, and in growing income for producers and exporters. The quality schemes department, recently formed within the new ministry structure, is now in charge of organic production control, and it will keep forming an effective legislative system and policy in the Ukrainian organic sector”.
At the moment Ukraine is considered as a pioneer market because organic products are represented by less than 1% of the overall production on the domestic market. (For comparing: the organic leader in Europe, Switzerland, has more than 9% of organic production on their internal market). In Ukraine, there are 617 organic operators, and 86 of them are processors producing a final product that is already being sold on the domestic market. The assortment of organic products is quite wide, but milk and cereal products are consumed most of all on the internal market. Regarding the foreign market, Ukraine is one of the 5 biggest EU suppliers of organic products, and the share of final products is growing.
Domestic and foreign experts specialized in organic development took part in the conference, as well as representatives from retail chains and organic producers. Pressing problems and challenges were discussed:
- export: the price of laboratory tests, time and costs needed for preparing documentation, image of Ukrainian production abroad, why Ukrainian producers lose clients sometimes (Olga Trofimtseva, former acting Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, and foreign experts shared their ideas on selling and promoting Ukrainian products on the foreign markets);
- the role and mission of retail chains: their interest in the development of the sector, information support for producers, organization of educational activities (for example, a school for producers from “Lavka Traditsiy”);
- problems related to promotion of organic products and importance of educating staff members in stores (sales consultants who are involved in communication with customers the most, as it turned out, know very little about organic and can rarely explain the meaning of organic labeling, — based on experience of producers of “Organic Milk” and “Kozub” regarding market entry in Ukraine).
The detailed review of recommendations from European and domestic experts is coming soon in our further articles. The conference gave a lot to think about. Don’t miss it in case you want to know more about the positioning of products in stores, how to work with retail chains and develop organic brand among consumers!
For reference.
Key numbers for understanding organic sector today:
- Milk products have the highest sale rates in final organic products on the domestic market of Ukraine — 4410 thousand kg or 345 million grivnas in 2018. Cereals, flour and seeds are in second place. * is Organic Standard certification body data source
- Ukraine ranks fourth in imports of agricultural organic production to the EU. China, the Dominican Republic and Ecuador are in the lead. But the difference in numbers between Ukraine, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic is not significant. *European Commission data source
- Products that are exported from Ukraine to the EU most of all: cereals (about 70%), seeds and different oil seeds (10.8%), soybeans (5%) and fruits (4.9%). *TRACES data source
- Export distribution of Ukrainian organic production among continents: 82% EU, 14% North America, 4% Asia, 0.0055% Oceania.
- 95% of organic raw material is being exported abroad for further processing, meanwhile, 80% of the final product is sold on the domestic market.
The conference was organized under the patronage of the Ministry for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine, supported by the project “Organic Market Study and Policy Development Support” with the financial support of Swiss Confederation, “German-Ukrainian Cooperation in the Field of Organic Agriculture” project and private donors.