About a dozen Ukrainian dairy farmers came to Wisconsin to experience the World Dairy Expo and to explore new technologies to bring back home, specifically around on-farm energy generation.
World Dairy Expo partners with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration to deploy the Trade Event Partnership Program at Expo. Through the program, Expo hosted buyers from four markets this year, including Ukraine. The goal is to establish export markets between U.S. partners and international delegations.
Olga Polozova from central Ukraine owns Krasnogirske, LLC and is a member of the Association of Milk Producers of Ukraine. She says it wasn’t easy to organize a trade delegation to the U.S. since the men needed special permission to leave the country, but they did it. Polozova says the highlight of the trip was touring farms with manure digesters.
“It’s a time when we have war in Ukraine, and for us, it’s very useful to see how American farmers make green electricity or alternative electricity to their farms,” Polozova explains. “Because of this, we came here to see the experience of American farmers and maybe to try to do something in Ukraine because we have a lot of blackouts.”
Polozova’s translator, Stanislav Zayodovskyi, says the electricity blackouts make it difficult for business to continue as usual, especially on the farm. He explains that this trade mission is an example of how Ukrainian business owners, such as the delegation of farmers, strive to be resilient amidst the war with Russia. Not only do they want to maintain their operations and Ukraine’s economy, but they want to make it better, he explains.
“Farmers in the states — they always are looking for good economical side, and they are very strong in this,” Polozova says. “Whenever we come to American farms, after the visit, we always have a lot of things to remake in our farms because they are always first in all technologies. This time, we came to visit farms which have digesters and it’s very interesting.”
Resiliency
There are horrors associated with farming in a warzone.
One member of the Ukrainian delegation was under Russian occupation for one month and was forced to dump his milk every day during that time. No dairy processing facility would risk coming to the farm to pick up the product. Despite that experience, he traveled to Wisconsin to learn how to improve his business.
Even in regions far away from the Russian border, there’s fear of drone strikes on Ukrainian agriculture. Polozova says while her farm is in central Ukraine, a drone strike could take out her crop.
“We are always afraid for the harvest because we have many drones. They come and they can burn your harvest in one night,” she says, adding that her farm just finished the soybean harvest and they are starting on corn and sunflowers next.
“We still have time for smiling,” she says. “We have to be strong, we need to have fun, to smile, to breathe, to eat, because if not we, then who?”
