Grain Ukraine 2021 conference complete program announced

The organizing committee of the Grain Ukraine 2021 conference to be held on June 4-5 in Odesa has announced a full program of the event. The main topic of this year's meeting is Future Grain, so the industry leaders will share their views on the future of Ukrainian grain. Andriy Stavnitser, co-owner of TIS Ukraine and the conference founder, traditionally will open it.

The first content block of the conference, Future Grain, will begin with a Roman Leshchenko, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, interview. He will share his views on the agricultural market growth strategy for the next 10 years answering questions of Larysa Mudrak, СЕО of Family Business Network Ukraine, President of Win Win Communications, and Andriy Dligach, CEO of the Advanter Group, co-founder of the Center for Economic Recovery.

In the next panel discussion ‘Start of the land market: challenges and long-term prospects for business, investors and the economy’ Roman Leshchenko will be joined by Yevhen Osipov, CEO of Kernel Ukraine, Dmytro Livch, Advisor to the Prime Minister (on pro-bono basis) in the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Center for Economic Recovery, Head of Analytics at EasyBusiness, and Olga Balytska, Head of Land and Real Estate Practice, PwC Legal Ukraine. They will talk about the launch of the land market in Ukraine, reform of the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre, land relations regulation, decentralization in the land sector, and All-Ukrainian referendum on the sale of agricultural land.

The second session — ‘Export potential of Ukrainian grain in the new season’ — will be moderated by Nataliya Mykolska, Non-executive member of the Supervisory Board of Ukrhydroenergo PJSC, Co-founder of Trade+ Center at Kyiv School of Economics, SheExports and TechUkraine platforms.

Vladyslava Magaletska, Head of the State Service for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, will talk on the role of the Service as a gateway to grain exports, addressing biosafety and food quality challenges, and also harmonization of Ukrainian and European legislation.

Almost an hour of discussion about the challenges and opportunities of Ukrainian grain in the world will gather on the stage of Grain Ukraine Taras Kachka, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine, Trade Representative of Ukraine, Arina Korchmaryova, Vice President of the Cotecna Inspection S.A. Group on the market of the Baltic and Black Seas, Olga Trofimtseva, Chairman of the Assembly of Agrarian Chambers of Ukraine and Gennadiy Khelemskyy, Head of Structured Trade Finance at JSB ‘Ukrgasbank’.

Mykhailo Malkov, Coordinator of Development Programs of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Ukraine, will talk about climate challenges for Ukrainian grain.

The trading panel will begin with a speech by Bohdan Kostetskiy, Operational Partner of Barva Invest trading and analytical company. He will talk about promising markets in the 2021/2022 season.

Then there will be three panel discussions.

The first will be moderated by Ivanna Dorichenko, GAFTA Arbitrator, Managing Director of TRADAIDE. Roman Rusakov, Black Sea Trader at Olam International, Hazem Saker, Senior Trader, Promising International Trading Co. DMCC., will talk about trends in the main markets for Black Sea grain and how to strengthen Ukraine's position.

The second will focus on lessons from defaults and the future. Moderator Nikolay Gorbachov, President of the Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA), will ask Tetiana Alaverdova, Sales Director at HarvEast, Ivanna Dorichenko and Volodymyr Osadchuk, General Manager of COFCO Agri Ukraine, how to prevent new defaults on forwards.

The bloc's third discussion — on trading strategies with price volatility — will bring together speakers Serhiy Dobrogorsky, Director of Finance Department at Mironovsky Hliboproduct Company, Borys Prykhodko, Financial Solution Lead at Syngenta Company, and Val Sigayev, Futures Broker and Risk Management Advisor, RJO’Brien. Kateryna Konashchuk, Founder and Partner at Trend&Hedge Club, will moderate the discussion about hedging the producers’ price risks, sales strategies for the new season, and promoting futures for Black Sea grain.

This year the always interesting and hot Grain Ukraine infrastructure panel with its traditional moderator Nikolay Gorbachev will be dedicated to port development. Shota Khadzhishvili, Co-founder and Director of  RISOIL S.A. Company, Raivis Veckagans, Owner of RV Transport Consulting, Yuriy Vaskov, Founder and CEO of Ukrmara LLC, Filipp Grushko, Member of the Supervisory Board of TIS Group, Business Development Director of Neptune grain terminal, Founding Partner of SD Capital investment company, Victor Dovgan, Investment Adviser to the EU Project, Anton Zhemerdieiev, Commercial Director at Maxigrain Ukraine, Mark Magaletsky, Deputy Head at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Ukraine. Speakers are invited to discuss such issues: how can Ukrainian ports increase cargo flows and compete with other European ports; can port dues be reviewed; how to create conditions for attracting investments from private companies?

The last panel of Grain Ukraine 2021 will be dedicated to the law ‘On inland water transport’. Mykhailo Rizak, Deputy General Director for Interaction with Public Authorities at Nibulon LLC, Yevhen Ignatenko, Co-founder and Commercial Director of Grain-Transhipment Company, and Dmytro Livch will discuss what’s wrong with this law.

The organizing committee marks the speeches about innovations in the grain market. Filipe Pohlmann Gonzaga, Chief Operating Officer of Cerealia, will cover the topic of blockchain in grain trade: the current situation and future. ‘How can blockchain change the agro-trading industry?’ — the question that will be answered in his speech. Special focus will be on blockchain use outside cryptocurrencies, tokenization of assets and the digitalization of agricultural trading.

Another industry innovation is N`UNIT, a new Ukrainian network of railway and automobile terminals. Yuriy Krasovskiy, Business Development Director N`UNIT, will talk about this future grain event.

After the content part participants will relax at a stylized party ‘Burning Year of Grain Men’ and at a show of famous Ukrainian rock band Vopli Vidopliasova.

On June 5, Grain Ukraine will continue with a relaxing day at Park Residence.

Find out more and book a ticket at grain-ukraine.com, follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.