Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, today (Wednesday, December 14) met with the Ukrainian Ambassador to Ireland, Larysa Gerasko, to announce funding to support up to 1,000 small family farms in Ukraine.

€750,000 has been made available for a United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) project in Ukraine. 

The project will support highly vulnerable small-holder farmers and households in rural areas at the frontline of the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. 

It will help them to meet their immediate food needs and resume food production activities that have been disrupted by military activity and occupation, according to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).

Announcing the funding support, Minister McConalogue stated: “I am very pleased that we can fund this important FAO project in Ukraine. Ireland and Ukraine share many similarities – we are both rural and agricultural, with farming playing a key role of our economies and societies. 

“This FAO project will support efforts to build back agricultural capacity and to build-up resilience of farms and households impacted most by the illegal Russian war in Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s Ambassador to Ireland, Larysa Gerasko, added: “Ireland has been there for Ukraine since the first day of the full-scale Russian invasion.

"The decision of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to allocate €750,000 to this FAO project is another demonstration of Ireland’s unwavering stance with Ukraine.”

The project will be overseen by the FAO in Kyiv whose head of office, Pierre Vauthier, said: “During our visits to frontline communities, we were impressed and moved by the resilience of the people we encountered, many of whom had been forced to stop farming and raising livestock because of the current situation.

"This support will enable rural families to resume production for their own household consumption and, in doing so, to meet their immediate food needs.

FAO is a specialised agency of the UN responsible for ending hunger and achieving improved nutrition and food security for all.

In Ukraine, the poultry sector is a significant contributor to rural livelihoods and incomes, with the meat and eggs playing a key role in household food security and nutrition.

The ongoing Russian war has resulted in the extensive loss of productive assets with a 20% loss of production capacity in the egg industry.

The beneficiary small-holder households will receive poultry production kits comprising of 30 one-day old chicks, as well as feed and mineral supplements for starter stages and supports to purchase supplemental feed, medicines, feeders and vacuum drinkers on the local market.