Ukraine at BioFach: combining innovations and traditions

There is an urgent need to change the attitude to Ukraine as a raw material zone and create the image of Ukraine as a country which produces quality innovative products. The Ukraine Pavilion contributes to that goal. This year the Ukrainian National Pavilion at BioFach had 20 exhibiting companies, over 50 products a big part of which are processed products, namely, oils, tomato paste, teas, groats, etc., and over one thousand meetings with potential buyers were counted.

Also at the conference programme Ukraine was present. The Forum "Ukraine open to Organic" attracted 90 participants from 15 countries such as Switzerland, Italy, the USA, Canada, Argentina, the Netherlands, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Poland, the UK and Russia.  

Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine for European Integration Olga Trofimtseva was part of the official delegation and had meetings with the European partners, including Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherland. German Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture Christian Schmidt paid a visit to the National Pavilion of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian National Pavilion is organised by the Consortium of three Ukrainian key organic stakeholders: QueS organic consultancy body, Organic Standard certification body and Green Dossier environmental NGO. Since 2014 the Ukrainian National Pavilion has been supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) in the framework of the Swiss-Ukrainian cooperation project Organic Market Development in Ukraine , implemented by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL, Switzerland).

For the last two years the Pavilion has also been co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) through the German-Ukrainian cooperation project “Advice to Ukraine on agricultural trade issues under the deep and comprehensive Free-Trade Agreement (DCFTA) between the EU and Ukraine”, implemented by AFC and IAK.

Since 2017 the pavilion has also been supported by Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF) funded by the U.S. government via the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

In 2018 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, ), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Union under the EU4Business Initiative also provided their support. The Ukrainian National Pavilion is also supported by the exhibiting companies and organised with the support of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.

Website of the Ukrainian National Pavilion and Facebook page and Twitter #OrganicinUkraine #UkraineatBioFach