Agribusiness ready to invest in processing, but held back by lack of long-term financing — market participants
Ukrainian agribusiness is actively investing in processing, energy projects, and sustainable economy initiatives, but scaling up remains constrained by the lack of project financing, expensive loans, and the unresolved issue of war-risk insurance, representatives of agricultural companies and the banking sector shared at the international conference Grain Ukraine 2026.
Chief Financial Officer of Vitagro Group, Serhii Shulha, said the company effectively suspended its investment projects only during the first two months of the full-scale war before returning to its development plans. According to him, the group invested more than UAH 5 billion between 2022 and 2025.
The key investment areas included energy, bioethanol, processing, and the development of the company’s core business.
“We are definitely moving into processing because we see added value and reduced price risks. We are entering deeper processing segments — from grain to the final product,” Serhii Shulha noted.
At the same time, he acknowledged that the implementation of large-scale projects is increasingly constrained by financing. While the average investment project previously required $10–20 million, current projects often demand $70–100 million, making it nearly impossible to provide traditional collateral. Moreover, not all banks are willing to engage in project financing, Shulha added.
Anton Yakovenko, CEO of Agricom Group, said that full-fledged project financing effectively does not exist in Ukraine under current wartime conditions.
“Project financing as such does not currently exist in Ukraine because there is no insurance mechanism and no one has found a way to effectively address the war-risk factor. This is a major constraint for the entire sector, and it remains unresolved. Businesses cannot solve this problem on their own,” Anton Yakovenko said.
He added that lending rates of 16–18% per annum make it impossible to implement long-term investment projects, forcing most agricultural companies to rely primarily on their own resources to finance new investments.
Meanwhile, the banking sector says its willingness to finance investment projects is gradually increasing. Pavlo Prytyko, Director of the Medium Corporate Clients Department at FUIB, noted that the banking system currently has sufficient liquidity and capital, and banks are continuously exploring opportunities in investment financing.
“We are already financing long-term projects with maturities of five to six years. However, the key factors remain the stability of cash flows and the resilience of the borrower’s business model,” he explained.
According to Pavlo Prytyko, businesses are increasingly seeking financing for new production facilities, processing projects, market expansion, and niche opportunities where internal capital is no longer sufficient. He added that agricultural loans currently account for 16% of banks’ loan portfolios and 18% at FUIB. Banks have already become accustomed to financing up to 80% of the production costs of farming programs. However, investment financing and processing projects are assessed individually, with companies typically required to contribute between 10% and 30% of project costs from their own funds.
Overall, FUIB’s agricultural loan portfolio has nearly doubled since the start of the full-scale invasion, reaching UAH 18 billion. Demand for investment financing is also growing among small and medium-sized agricultural businesses. The most common instruments include non-revolving credit lines, loans, and leasing, which are primarily used for the regular renewal of fixed assets, including self-propelled, mounted, and trailed agricultural machinery, vehicles, and processing equipment.
