As part of this year's BIOFACH in Nuremberg, the world's biggest trade fair for organic farming, there was once again a large congress programme. Under the title ‘Ukraine's Organic Sector in the EU Integration Process – Challenges, Opportunities, and Post-War Resilience’, a very well-attended event took place on Wednesday 12.02.2025, at which the participants were able to gain a comprehensive picture of the current situation in organic farming in Ukraine, exports to the EU and future opportunities for the further development of organic farming in Ukraine.
The event was introduced by Taras Vysotzky, First Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Ukraine, Dr. Ophelia Nick Nick, Parliamentary State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture and Marco Kräuchi, Programme Manager Trade Promotion Division at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. Mr. Vyssotzky particularly emphasized the diversity of organic farming in Ukraine and pointed out that the implementation of European agricultural regulations into Ukrainian law is one of the priority goals of the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture.
Olga Trofimtseva, Agrarian specialist from Ukraine, emphasised in her remarks that Ukraine's integration into the EU can significantly strengthen strategic security and food resilience in Europe. This also applies to organic farming.
The subsequent panels on political and trade aspects of Ukraine’s integration into the EU also featured high-ranked speakers. The ‘political’ panel included Mr Vysotsky, Marianna Paolino, Policy Officer Organic at European Commission DG Agriculture, Jan Plagge, President IFOAM Organics Europe, and Sergiy Galashevskyy, General Manager at Organic Standard Ltd. Ukraine. Jan Plagge and Marianna Paolino emphasised their solidarity with organic farming in Ukraine.
The ‘economic’ panel was introduced by Olena Deineko, Chairman of the Board of Organic Initiative Public Association, who presented the results of a study on the current status, plans, and needs of Ukrainian organic exporters (https://lnkd.in/e4X33JTs). The panel was concluded with specific remarks on trade with organic companies from Ukraine by Dorian Schroeper, Dobro Commodities, Alla Ponomarenko, ALTA KRAINA, and Iryna Kolesnyk, UKROLIYA LTD. They also emphasized the high performance of organic companies in Ukraine and used their companies as examples to show how trade in organic products from Ukraine can be successfully implemented.
Peter Jossi will soon be publishing a detailed report on this event in the magazine ‘bioPress’.
The event was organised by the project ‘German-Ukrainian Cooperation in Organic Farming’ and the Swiss-Ukrainian Programme ‘Higher Value-Added Trade from the Organic and Dairy Sector in Ukraine’ (QFTP). The event was moderated by Anastasiia Pivniuk and Oleksandr Kaliberda.
