"It's hard, but we'll come out the other side".

Liubov Harkusha lives in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Twenty years ago, she and her family began to cultivate 60 hectares of land, and they bought an old tractor to help with the work. Currently, the farmer has two tractors and cultivates 200 hectares of land, growing grain and oil crops such as wheat and sunflower. “The business is growing slowly. If only there were no war…,” says Liubov.

With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian agricultural producers faced unprecedented challenges: complicated logistics and the inability to sell grain due to the blockage of sea routes. To support micro and small agricultural producers, the USAID Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities Activity (AGRO) provided grain sleeves and specialized equipment to package grain and further unload it for enterprises that provided relevant services to local farmers.

Last year, Liubov built a small warehouse to preserve the 2023 sunflower harvest. Later, she realized that the grain storage could not contain the entire upcoming harvest. So, the farmer turned for help to the Hospodar Cooperative Association, which provided services to farmers in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast with USAID AGRO support. Liubov stored about 200 tons of her wheat harvest in sleeves. “We used to stack wheat on a pile and cover it with a tarpaulin, and it stayed until spring. There was a lot of damaged grain. Thanks to the sleeves provided, the grain is protected; otherwise we could not save it. We will wait for the best time to sell it.” Having preserved the crop, agricultural producers can plan their further work and depend less on market price fluctuations, which is very important in the current conditions.

She says that the war hurt her enterprise. “It is very difficult for us farmers now, the war has brought many challenges. The cost of fertilizers and fuel has increased significantly, and the grain prices remain very low.” Liubov is actively looking for opportunities to support her household’s work. In autumn 2023, she was one of 12,000 farmers who received fertilizer for the autumn sowing campaign, provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea ?as part of as part of the USAID Agriculture Resilience Initiative-Ukraine (AGRI-Ukraine). “Thanks to USAID AGRO, we received NPK fertilizers and we could feed 10 hectares of winter wheat. It overwintered well, and everything is fine. We are very satisfied. Without it, it is not clear how it would have gone.”

Despite all the challenges, the farmer is now waiting for the future harvest and continues to work.? Liubov believes that things will get better and she is planning for the future. Liubov’s younger son is studying agronomy. “We will have a family business. We plan to continue teaching him. He will work with us, and we will involve him gradually. Nowadays, everyone is trying to survive somehow and waiting for victory. So, we stand. It’s hard, but we’ll survive. We hope that everything will improve.”

USAID AGRO supports micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) that produce grain and oilseeds at important production stages, particularly with access to essential inputs. In 2023, AGRI-Ukraine provided more than 14,000 Ukrainian agricultural producers with seeds and fertilizers for cultivation on more than 460,000 hectares. AGRO extends this support to grain storage, with over 1,000 agricultural producers in 10 oblasts using sleeve storage services, storing over 1.97 million metric tons of grain. In 2024, USAID AGRO Ukraine plans to support elevators to increase the volume of grain storage by more than 276,000 tons.