MEDA and its partners worked together to develop the horticultural sector of the Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. The goal of this project was to increase the incomes of 44,000 smallholder horticultural small and medium businesses.
This project was a 7-year initiative to improve the horticultural market system for small farmers and entrepreneurs in southern Ukraine. UHBDP provided these farmers and entrepreneurs with technological incentives, e-commerce platforms, business skills training, and market linkages to increase their yields and incomes.
To improve the livelihoods of 44,000 men and women farmers by boosting their annual sales to $40 million USD, and increase their production to 50,000 tons.
The project positively impacted 45,000 men and women horticultural farmers and small businesses.
Despite southern Ukraine’s large agricultural and human resources, and the important role agriculture contributes to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment – government policy reforms have stagnated. This, combined with below standard business and production practices, and inadequate sales models, have resulted in low crop yields, lower earnings per acre, and family incomes.
Horticulture small businesses in southern Ukraine face many challenges, including substandard business and production techniques and inadequate sales models. As a result, these small business owners and farmers earn less income. These challenges are made worse by substandard environmental practices that hinder agricultural development and deplete soil fertility resulting in adverse effects on food safety and food security.
Women farmers also lack access to information on harvest, post-harvest, and market knowledge along with reduced access to materials supplied by men service agents. These challenges lead to poor agricultural practices from women, who are involved in day-to-day labor and farm operations.
Despite the above-mentioned obstacles, they presented an opportunity for the UHBDP to engage directly with men and women farmers and small businesses. The UHBDP project strengthened their capacities in gender and environmental sustainability and improved their business practices.
The UHBDP project improved Ukraine’s horticultural economic systems. It:
Today, MEDA launched its UHBDP project learning series. This learning series contains valuable insights from the UHBDP project, which ran for seven years, and concluded in March 2021. This project aimed to increase the incomes of 44,000 smallholder horticultural small and medium businesses.
After five promising years, MEDA’s Ukrainian Horticulture Business Development Project has ended. Taking place in four southern regions of Ukraine, this project was funded by the Government of Canada and increased the incomes of thousands of small farmers and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the horticulture sector.
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MEDA – Mennonite Economic Development Associates – is an international economic development organization that creates business solutions to poverty.
Mennonite Economic Development Associates is a 501(c)(3) status non-profit organization in the United States: EIN 23-7398678.
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