European farmers are afraid of efficient Ukrainian farmers - how will we live with this in the future

Taras Kachka, Deputy Minister of Economy and Trade Representative of Ukraine, believes that European farmers are afraid to compete with Ukrainian farmers who have proven their own ability to survive in extremely difficult conditions. According to him, agriculture in both the EU and Ukraine is not only small farmers, but also large industrial supply chains. Even before the large-scale war, Ukraine was constantly increasing its presence on the EU markets, and during the last two years, Ukrainian farmers have proven that even in war conditions they have something to offer to the European market.

As the trade representative of Ukraine noted, in his opinion, there are several dimensions for evaluating what is happening today. Ukraine has had access to EU markets within the framework of the free trade agreement since 2014, therefore, in 10 years, multi-system supply chains were formed in the agricultural sector. Ukrainian producers mastered certain niches, but at the same time did not squeeze Polish, German or French farmers out of their market, but participated in the expansion of production in the EU. Therefore, Taras Kachka is sure, Ukrainian farmers do not harm the European Union, but at the same time they are more attractive from the point of view of the development of food production. What follows from this is that there are two things that cause some fear among European farmers. The first point is that Ukrainian farmers did not have subsidies, that is, they did not have the same financial support as farmers in the EU. After all, people involved in European agriculture are most afraid of efficiency. They believe that it is not about efficiency, but about everyday life. And against the background of the absence of subsidies, Ukrainian farmers could survive by betting on efficiency. The second point — Ukraine aspires to become a member of the EU and is building a policy on the safety of food products and technologies based on European rules. Therefore, Ukrainian products are not foreign to the market and meet European requirements. But, what is important, Ukraine supports the EU policy regarding the fact that the agricultural sector is more than business. According to the government official, this is a built-up system with farmers living in the village.

In general, it is worth noting that the European Commission recognizes that the agricultural sector will become the main problem of Ukraine's European integration. As the vice-president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, emphasized earlier, a strategic choice has been made and the future of Ukraine is seen in the European Union. And the situation with the ban on Ukrainian agricultural products by some EU countries is a short-term phenomenon that arose as a result of the war, the blocking of the Black Sea corridors and the disruption of trade flows. As the European official noted, he personally does not see any serious problems for the European integration of Ukraine that lie outside of agriculture. After all, access to the EU market for all Ukrainian goods has been completely liberalized and there are no problems in any other sector. Thus, the only sector where there are real problems is agriculture, stated Valdis Dombrovskis. In this regard, he added that discussions regarding the future common agricultural policy in the EU in the context of Ukraine's potential accession are already underway. The same negotiations will be held in relation to other sectors. In particular, before the war, there were preventive measures regarding steel, which also applied to Ukraine. Now they do not apply to Ukraine, so there should not be any problems with metallurgy.

If we abstract from the available messages and opinions of various official levels, it is worth noting that the Ukrainian grain crisis in the European Union in 2023 became a litmus test that showed how fragile the complex mechanism of multilateral agreements, in particular on free trade, turned out to be. By the way, the mentioned Taras Kachka holds the same opinion. According to him, Ukraine has been working on the Association Agreement for many years and has solved many internal and external problems. And in the case when some national government simply ignores pan-European agreements and decisions and introduces its own bans, the question arises of the European Union itself and its ability to conduct a common policy. Therefore, the EU is now trying to establish safeguards under which conditions an operational restriction of Ukrainian imports is possible. And Ukraine will discuss with the European Parliament the format and conditions of these fuses. All this is a good opportunity to explain to the whole world that Ukrainian farmers are in the same trouble as Polish farmers, therefore the joint solution of problems should be in the plane of a common vision of the future.