OKKO Group has financed farmers for 1 billion UAH

In 2019, OKKO Group holding provided agricultural producers with over 1 billion UAH in material and technical resources as part of its forward program to support the agro-industrial complex. This is 20% more than in the previous year. The total cost of applications for three full seasons directly reached 5 billion UAH. 

"The essence of forwarding agreements is that we provide farmers with fuel, mineral fertilizers, natural gas, other goods or direct financing in advance, and we get paid for them with agricultural products," explains OKKO Group CEO Oleksandr Nikolenko. -  "In 2020, we also intend to provide services for storage, drying of grain crops at our own facilities, to organize our own processing of oilseeds."

Every season, the number of applications for participation in the forward program of the OKKO Group agro-direction increases approximately twice. Last year (including January 2020) about 400 appeals were received from farmers. Most of the participants in the OKKO forward program are small and medium-sized farms with lands from 500 to 30 thousand hectares. According to Oleksandr Nikolenko, farmers are attracted not only by the flexibility of financial conditions but also by the efficiency of decision-making and a minimum of bureaucracy. Express analysis of the potential agreement is carried out by OKKO experts within 1-2 days, a week is enough to sign a forward contract.

In 2019, OKKO Group sold almost 1 million tons of agricultural products. More than 70% was sold under direct export contracts, the rest was sold on the internal market. The main place in the sales basket is occupied by crops of the grain group - wheat and corn, to a lesser extent - oilseeds.

In order to provide farmers with the most convenient mineral fertilizers, the holding has set up three storages - in Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions. During 2018-2019, OKKO Group created its own fleet of grain trucks, investing more than 100 million UAH in this project. Today it has 45 transport units. The fleet of trucks serves the holding’s needs and external clients.