MEDA, with partners are collaborating to develop the horticultural sector and increase incomes for 44,000 smallholder horticultural small and medium businesses in the Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine.
This project is a 7-year initiative to improve the horticultural market system for small farmers and entrepreneurs in southern Ukraine. UHBDP bridges the gap between Ukraine’s elementary agricultural business practices and low yields with technological incentives, e-commerce platforms, business skills training and provide market linkages to increase yields and incomes.
To improve the livelihoods of 44,000 men and women farmers by boosting their annual sales to $40 million USD, and build production to 50,000 tones.
Activities have reached a total of 45,000 men and women horticultural farmers and small businesses. Farmers are reached through financial incentives, grants, e-commerce sales, digital promotion platforms, business skills development organizations, and vocational internships from local agricultural universities.
Despite southern Ukraine’s vast agricultural and human resources, and the important role agriculture contributes to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment – government policy reforms have remained stagnant. This gap, combined with poor business and production practices, and inadequate sales models has resulted in low crop yields, earnings per hectare and family incomes.
The main challenges faced by horticultural small businesses in southern Ukraine include poor business and production techniques and inadequate sales models; resulting in low household incomes. This challenge is compounded by poor environmental practices that hinder agricultural development and deplete soil fertility resulting in adverse effects on food safety and food security.
Women face additional challenges due to lack of access to information on harvest, post-harvest, and market knowledge along with reduced access to materials supplied by men service agents. This leads to poor agricultural practices from women, who are involved in day-to-day labour and farm operations.
These challenges provide UHBDP with the opportunity to engage directly with men and women farmers and small businesses to build capacity in gender and environmental sustainability – along with better business practices.
This project aims to meet these opportunities through the following interventions: improve business and production performance of value chain actors, empower small businesses to buy and sell to farmers, and help business service providers, financial service providers, and training institutions to more effectively reach their customers.
UHBDP seeks to address and improve the challenges in Ukraine’s horticulture economic systems by:
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