Organic grain production costs 25–30% more than conventional crops — expert insight

Producing organic grain requires significantly more resources, making it more expensive to grow compared to conventional crops. Costs increase by 25–30%, said Mykola Kamyshov, head of the Trading House at Elite Seeds LLC, according to Elevatorist.com.

The reason lies in the different cultivation technology: while conventional producers rely on chemical treatments and minimal field care, organic production requires several additional operations and more expensive inputs.

“What do conventional grain farms do? They spray chemicals once and then largely ignore the field until harvest, because only the intended crops will grow. With organic grain, you need to cultivate the rows several times manually and use organic products that are much more expensive. That’s why our production costs are about 25–30% higher,” Kamyshov explained.

The company is registered in the EU as an organic producer and exports grain to France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Israel, South Korea, and China.

Some shipments to Israel are loaded directly from the farm. “We load part of the grain into containers right here on the farm. In addition, we use liner bags. Trucks then transport the grain to the port,” he said.

Currently, the farm stores about 2,000 tons of grain in warehouses and another 5,000 tons in polymer sleeves produced by a Ukrainian company, Planet Plastic. All processes run in parallel: harvesting maize, drying, and filling silobags. Corn is loaded into the sleeves at a base moisture of 14%.