Japanese experts will deal with the restoration of rice fields in Ukraine

Japan will help restore rice irrigation systems in a number of regions of Ukraine. This issue was discussed during a working meeting of representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Fisheries Agency and the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

Japanese specialists propose to modernize and increase the efficiency of functioning irrigation systems, restore non-functioning systems, and provide technical and financial support to the organization of water use. They also propose to identify such regions as Odesa, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr as priority. First of all, work will begin on the preparation of information on projects in the Odesa region, in particular on the modernization and restoration of rice irrigation systems.

It should be noted that Japan will also help Ukraine in the implementation of priority reconstruction projects. Currently, the Ministry of Reconstruction and the Japan International Cooperation Agency are implementing two phases of the Emergency Recovery Program of Ukraine for a total amount of more than 575 million dollars. The program covers such areas as humanitarian demining, support for the transport sector, restoration of critical infrastructure, management of destruction waste and support for the agricultural sector, etc. As part of this cooperation, Japan has already handed over the first batch of equipment for the restoration of Irpen, Kyiv region.

As for the agricultural sphere, Ukraine and Japan are strengthening cooperation in this direction.

"We are grateful to the Japanese government for supporting Ukraine. This applies, in particular, to the provision of equipment for temporary storage of grain, which helped our agrarians in solving problems of shortage of grain storage facilities. We appreciate all the help provided," said Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Markiyan Dmytrasevich.