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Harvest Festival from Ukraine Land

Ukraine land is one of the world's largest producers of grains and seeds. If the harvest figures were good last year, this year's harvest confirms that investment in Ukraine agricultural land is one of the best additions to any property investment portfolio.

Take sunflower seeds for example. This season's production from Ukraine land has increased by 2 million tonnes to a record level of 6.18 million tonnes. As a result, profitability in sunflower oil production and exports has increased by 200%. This new high consolidates Ukraine's position as one of the world's top three sunflower producers.

Flaxseed crops are also showing extremely promising harvests with this year's production up 60% on last year. Ukraine is tipped to become a major exporter of flaxseed to the EU, particularly as many European countries have banned imports of Canadian genetically-modified flaxseed.

But Ukraine land is best known for grain and here too, this year's harvest figures show that Ukraine land is on a roll. Figures just released by the Ukraine Agricultural Ministry show that 40.35 million tonnes of grain had been harvested by the beginning of October, confirmation that Ukraine is well on target for 45 million tonnes this year. Not for nothing did BBC Newsnight journalism, Jeremy Cooke, report that the harvest from Ukraine farmland was "going full tilt". Cooke also noted that although the combines were busy 24-7, "as fast as they can get the wheat out of the fields, it's being gobbled up by a ravenous international market."

While the grain yield is not quite as high as last year's record crops, it is enough to keep Ukraine among the world's top grain producers along with giants such as the US and Australia. And Ukraine land offers several advantages over other countries.
In the first place, there is plenty of it. Vast tracts of Ukraine agricultural land are currently lying unfarmed after being abandoned when the Soviet Union dissolved.

This farmland is highly fertile - it's home to one of the world's highest percentages of chernozems (rich black topsoil) - and unsurprisingly, numerous companies have earmarked Ukraine land for investment. According to APK-Inform, an independent monitoring body of agriculture in Ukraine, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, the 25 largest agrarian holdings in Ukraine land lease nearly 3 million hectares of farmland. APK-Inform also report that Ukraine has a total of between 40 and 42 million hectares of agricultural land.

Ukraine land also has the potential to substantially increase its yields, an advantage that will eventually give Ukraine farmland the edge over the US and Argentina where yields are already maximised or close to it. Improved farming techniques and agricultural methods are fast being introduced in Ukraine - a practice known as the ‘catch-up effect' - and the results are already plain to see. The harvest yield from Ukraine land is expected to more than double over the next five years.

The unrelenting rise in the demand for food means that Ukraine land will undoubtedly has a major role to play in providing food for the world. With massive hikes in food prices predicted by 2050 because of increased demand and the negative effects of global warming, investment in Ukraine farmland can only bring in higher yields. Like its harvest.

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