On May 30, 2018, the Sumy Business Forum which was called “Effective Processing and Cooperation in the Agricultural Sector of Sumy Region” was held in Sumy, organized by the NGO “Council of Young Scientists” on the basis of the Sumy Business Support Center with grant of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development of the EU4Business initiatives of the European Union.
The purpose of the event was to consider the practical mechanisms of cooperative movement development in the Sumy region, as well as to consider the possibilities of modern technological processing of agricultural products by agricultural enterprises of the Sumy region.
The representatives of peasant farms, heads of small and medium-sized enterprises, representatives of the authorities, united territorial communities, experts of the agrarian market took part in the forum.
Taras Savchenko, Head of the Business Support Center in Sumy, stressed the main issues of the business forum: “Two key issues on the agenda: first of all, cooperation, and cooperation not in terms of theory, but in terms of practical mechanisms, legal, economic ones, to finally move on and promote the emergence of cooperatives. This is a widely discussed issue, but in reality, this process is developing rather slowly. And the second issue in regard to the processing of agricultural products: we all understand that we are an agricultural country and we produce a lot, but we mainly export unprocessed products. Therefore, added value is something that is gained by the developed countries“.
The main part of the business forum included speeches of key speakers: Roman Korinets, a Coordinator of the Working Group on Rural Development of the Reform Support Office at the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine, Oleksiy Kartaviy, Head of the Association of Agrarian Enterprises of Sumy Region, Larisa Starikova, Head of the Analytical Center of Ukraine , Mykhailo Makhitka, Head of the Association of Farmers and Private Landowners in Sumy region, Tamara Kharchenko, the EU / the UNDP “Project Coordinator, Community-Based Local Development” in Sumy region, and others.
In the second part of the event the work of three parallel sections was organized:
Panel discussion “Development of the regional milk market”,
Panel discussion “Development of the regional market for fruit and berry products”,
Seminar “Practical Mechanisms for Creating a Successful Agricultural Cooperative”.
The importance of this forum for the Sumy region was noted Alexander Maslak, Director of the Department of Agro-Industrial Development of the Sumy Regional State Administration, that “One of the directions of the Sumy region’s development is a union of retail trading producers, which today produce a significant part of agricultural products and to give them opportunities to deliver these products to final consumers”.
