A meeting of the Working Group on Horticulture Development of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine was held under the leadership of the First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, Head of the Working Group T.M. Vysotskyi. Experts from the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, heads of industry associations and public associations, representatives of the Ministry of Economy, the State Production and Consumer Service, the Institute of Horticulture of the National Academy of Sciences, and leading horticultural enterprises took part in the meeting of the Working Group.

Consideration of the issue of the participation of horticultural enterprises that receive their own harvest and plan to develop processing capacities for its primary technological processing, in the form of receiving a grant for the development of a processing enterprise, in accordance with the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of June 24, 2022 No. 739 "Some issues of granting grants for processing enterprises" was initiated by the corporation "Vinnytsyasadvinprom" and the Ukrainian Nut Association.

The urgency of considering this issue is as follows. With the help of the State Horticulture Support Programs for the period 2018-2023, 14,501 hectares of new orchards were planted, of which 5,890 hectares were nut orchards, or 41% of the total area of newly created orchards in Ukraine (as of February 17, 2024).

Currently, industrial gardens are actively entering the phase of commercial fruiting. Every year, more and more horticultural agricultural enterprises will face the need for primary processing of fruits after harvesting.

As for nuts, the harvested crop of nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts) immediately after its collection in industrial gardens is subject to mandatory primary processing, which includes a number of sequentially performed technological operations: cleaning, washing, drying, calibration, packaging of nuts for storage harvest After the aforementioned technological operations, the nuts are used for their further promotion: sale (including for export), further in-depth processing - peeling, blanching, production of nut products and ingredients, etc.

Industrial orchards of stone and seed fruit crops also have appropriate technologies for primary processing of fruits after harvesting.

A significant part of horticultural agricultural enterprises, horticultural farmers plan to purchase equipment for primary processing of fruits with the help of the current grant program in accordance with the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 739 "Some issues of granting grants to processing enterprises" dated 06.24.2022. (hereinafter - resolution of the KMU-739).

Several horticultural enterprises have already applied for grant funds with business projects for the development of processing facilities for the primary technological processing of the harvest collected in the gardens, but their applications were rejected.

Roman Kropivnytskyi, director of the Department of Development of the Real Sector of the Economy of the Ministry of Economy, was invited and participated in the meeting of the Working Group on the Development of Horticulture to consider this issue. After all, according to the resolution of the KMU-739, the executor of the budget program for providing grants for processing enterprises is the Ministry of Economy.

Therefore, after the speeches of the director of the corporation "Vinnytsyasadvinprom" S. Boychuk and the president of the Ukrainian Nut Association H. Yudin at the meeting of the Working Group, the director of the Department of the Ministry of Economy R. Kropivnytskyi informed about the following.

Indeed, primary technological processing of the harvest collected in gardens in accordance with KVED-2010 refers to Section A Group 01.2 Class 01.25 Growing of berries, nuts and other fruits, which is one of the main ones for most horticultural enterprises. At the same time, the section of Section A includes only the cultivation of agricultural crops, including the cultivation of perennial crops, and the activities of further processing of agricultural products are classified according to the current KVED-2010 in Section C Processing industry.

In turn, the types of economic activity of Section C Processing industry are suitable for receiving grant funds according to the resolution of the KMU-739. But during the initial technological processing of the harvested crop, there is no change of the crop collected and initially processed in the gardens to a new type of product.

Therefore, the director of the Department of the Ministry of Economy R. Kropivnytskyi provided his coordinates for further communication on this issue. In this regard, the corporation "Vinnytsiasadvinprom" and the Ukrainian Nut Association will submit their own proposals to the Department of the Ministry of Economy to find the right solution for drawing up business projects by horticultural enterprises for the development of processing capacities and will continue consultations on this matter.

In this regard, the corporation "Vinnytsiasadvinprom" and the Ukrainian Nut Association offer horticultural agro-enterprises, gardeners-farmers who plan to submit applications for grant funds with business projects for the development of processing capacities for the harvest collected in orchards within the framework of Cabinet Resolution No. 739 "Some issues of granting grants to processing enterprises" dated June 24, 2022, contact the corporation "Vinnytsiasadvinprom" (tel. 0678880341, email: vinsadvinprom@ukr.net ) and the Ukrainian Nut Association (tel. 0675230985, email: ukr. nuts2008@gmail.com )

At the meeting of the Working Group of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, other, but no less important, issues related to the development of horticulture were discussed, namely:

• On the development of a road map for the adoption by the European Commission of regulations (EU) 2022/1309 and 2023/158 on the abolition of restrictions on the export of planting material of cherries, cherries and nuts from Ukraine to EU countries

• On the inclusion of nursery farms in the State Register of Seed and Nursery Entities

• About the state of the horticulture industry in farms and features of the 2024 season

  
  

  But read more about the consideration of these issues in the following information.

President of the Ukrainian Nut Association G. Yudin