The pond the “Lan” farm draws irrigation water from
Photo source: Latifundist.com
We continue our Hydro Tour across Ukraine’s regions, in which the Latifundist.com team, together with partners the “Astra” Agro-Construction Alliance and Valmont Inc. (maker of irrigation systems under the Valley brand), shows you the specifics of using irrigation systems and the climate conditions of various corners of our country.
This time our route takes us to Dnipropetrovsk region, where we’ll visit two farms. Our first stop on the route is the “Lan” agricultural firm, where irrigation is used to grow commercial grain. The second visit is planned in the village of Mohyliv, where a European producer of major field-crop seeds — Mas Seeds — operates.
This year the weather “spared no favors” for Dnipropetrovsk region in terms of rain. According to specialists from the agro-weather service “Meteo Farm”, the region received its normal rainfall quota only in February and May (89 mm and 54 mm respectively). April, July and August were the driest. Maximum air temperature in the summer months reached +35–36.2 °C.
As Ihor Gubarev, CEO of ASA “Astra”, noted, climate change is now visible even in regions that, until recently, experienced no shortage of rainfall or moisture. Forecasts suggest the trend will only intensify, so farmers need to react to nature’s challenges in advance and stay one step ahead.
In his view, one solution to the drought problem in Ukraine isn’t simply irrigation, but effective irrigation management. There’s even a concept of water-resource depletion. So farmers face the task of achieving high results while using a minimal amount of water.
Getting to know the “Lan” farm
The village of Novovyazivske, where the “Lan” farm is located, tends to be bypassed by rain. We already knew about this “uniqueness” of the area from our previous visit. Two years ago we were guests at the enterprise, and back then we were told that in summer it can go without rain for two months at a time. This year was no exception. Just 20 mm of precipitation fell over the three summer months. We’ll explain a bit later how the enterprise operates under drought conditions while still getting a good harvest — but first, let’s introduce it.
The village of Novovyazivske, home to the “Lan” farm
“Lan” is a family enterprise. It’s run by father Serhiy Malovyk and his sons — Serhiy and Mykola. The elder son didn’t originally plan to tie his life to agriculture and enrolled in medical academy. He graduated successfully and even worked seven years as a surgeon. But later he decided to help his father develop the family business, and says he’s never once regretted that decision. Unlike his older brother, the younger son knew from the start that he wanted to work in agribusiness, so he studied management at an agrarian university.
It’s worth noting that the Malovyk family has lived on this land since the days of the Cossacks. The family likes to recall the story of where their lineage began. According to the family tale, near the village of Khandeleyivka (today’s Novovyazivske), there was a hamlet called Kocherezhky, where Cossacks settled. A Cossack widow living there took in a man who had fled a landlord’s oppression. They had 7 children, from whom the Malovyk family line descends.
Harvest underway on a field of the “Lan” farm
But back to the present day. In 2000, Serhiy Malovyk decided to start his own enterprise. He already had management experience, having served for several years as a collective-farm chairman. At its peak, the firm’s land bank totaled 10,000 ha; today that figure has shrunk to 6,500 ha. They grow corn, sunflower, rapeseed and barley.
How they decided on an ambitious project
Deputy director Serhiy Malovyk (the elder son — ed.) gave us a tour of the enterprise. Asked why they decided to take up irrigation, he answered that drought was to blame, along with the understanding that watering is the key to success and stability in agriculture.
He noted that irrigation here actually began 60 years ago, back in the collective-farm era, though nothing survived from that period to our day. Rolling up their sleeves, the whole Malovyk family set about designing and building all the engineering structures themselves. From the idea to the first watering, just 7 months passed.
It was a big, ambitious project, funded with both personal and borrowed money. Total investment came to UAH 70 million. That sum covered machinery and engineering structures (a total of 12 km of pipe was laid). So, starting in 2017, they began growing corn and barley here exclusively under irrigation.
«Today we have 650 ha under irrigation, of which corn takes up around 50%. We also use irrigation for winter and spring barley — 22 ha and 200 ha were sown this year respectively.»
Serhiy Malovyk
Deputy director of the “Lan” farm
Under irrigation, they get:
- 7-8 t/ha of spring barley (without irrigation the figure would be 2 t/ha);
- more than 8 t/ha of winter barley;
- 12.5 t/ha of corn.
The farm has 11 irrigation machines from Valley at its disposal. The decision on which system to choose was made based on the experience of fellow farmers who had already used such systems for years. However, management had to travel to other regions, since in their own area irrigation was only used on two orchards.
«We visited several enterprises, talked with people who’d worked with irrigation for many years, and settled on Valley systems. And for 3 years now we haven’t had a single complaint about their work», — says Serhiy Malovyk.
As for the equipment’s payback period, our host expects five years. Valmont specialists cite the same figure.
Water problems
As soon as “Lan” started using irrigation, the district administration began throwing up obstacles. Serhiy Malovyk explains this by the fact that irrigation and higher yields allowed them to double the rent paid to shareholders. Neighboring farms weren’t happy about it, and used the local authorities to “pressure” the enterprise. It even got to the point of absurdity, when the district state administration sued itself in court to revoke its own permit letting “Lan” lease the ponds. Lawsuit followed lawsuit. Things changed somewhat once the district’s leadership changed.
Today the farm draws irrigation water from 3 leased reservoirs. The maximum permitted volume of water allocated for irrigation from these reservoirs must not exceed 1 million m³.
«Our water sits in reservoirs, or rather lakes, so we’re somewhat limited in quantity. There’s also the Dnipro-Donbas canal within 15 km of us. Right now there are no government-support programs, but if there were, our irrigated area would grow considerably.»
Serhiy Malovyk
Deputy director
of the “Lan” farm
Getting the permitting paperwork done requires going through a number of procedures. And here it’s worth noting that in Dnipropetrovsk region, no permits for leasing ponds were issued for 13 years. While there are “rules of the game” when it comes to water-use norms, the process of leasing reservoirs remains complicated and full of all the “charms” of the bureaucratic system.
The pond the “Lan” farm draws irrigation water from
«I’m planning to expand the irrigated land, but for 2 years now I haven’t been able to get the ponds registered. We filed the petition, the referral for drawing up the technical documentation. In the end, the survey I paid UAH 280,000 for was supposed to be done by the state. All of that was done over 5 years, and now it has to be redone», — explains the deputy director.
Another significant snag was the problem of a power line planned to run to the pump station. It was solved by installing diesel pump stations, which brought additional costs.
Pour, pour it all out, quick
Caught up in an interesting conversation, we didn’t notice we’d spent several hours at the enterprise. Time to head to the field and see the machines at work with our own eyes. On the way, Serhiy Malovyk notes that the farm uses two frontal machines and seven circular machines 550 m, 530 m and 520 m long.
«The cost per hectare of irrigation would be lower if the fields were square. As it is, we set up a circular machine 550 m long, and it only waters one sector — instead of a conditional 100 ha, only 50 ha.»
Serhiy Malovyk
Deputy director
of the “Lan” farm
Out in the field, he proudly shows us a Valley-made Rainger machine. Three years ago they were the first to buy this kind of unit. Whereas a frontal machine is universal — it can water and turn to the other side — this type of machine only moves in a straight line, but waters faster. Irrigating a field 3 km long at a rate of 25 mm takes 7 days. On this particular field they decided to run an experiment this year — getting a second harvest under irrigation. After the barley, they planted sunflower here in late July. By the time of our September visit it was already flowering. We’ll learn how successful the experiment was on our next visit. For now, we say goodbye to the farm and continue on our way.
Hello, Mas Seeds Ukraine!
Where in Ukraine is the largest seed-production plant located? The correct answer is — in the village of Mohyliv. This is the “MAS Seeds Ukraine” plant, with a production capacity of 1 million tonnes of seed per year. That’s exactly where we headed on the second day of the Hydro Tour through Dnipropetrovsk region. MAS Seeds opened the production facility in 2010, investing €40 million in its construction. As one of the oldest French cooperatives, uniting 8,000 farmers, and the largest producer of corn, the company harvests more than 1 million tonnes of this crop every year.
During our meeting, “MAS Seeds Ukraine” production director Mykola Chernysh talks about his career, which he began nine years ago as an agronomist. When the French first arrived in Ukraine, few partner-farmers used irrigation to grow crops. When one year turned out to be a poor harvest, while the seed-supply order still had to be fulfilled, it became clear that growing crops without irrigation carries enormous risk, and the company decided to push for 100% irrigation of its land.
Mykola Chernysh, production director of “MAS Seeds Ukraine”
They managed to reach that goal back in 2015. Thanks to a €1 million loan from the EBRD, an irrigation system was installed at partner farms, allowing farmers to grow seed with maximum irrigation of the land.
Monitoring the irrigation equipment
Some time later, the production department faced a question: how to use the irrigation systems more effectively?
«We were curious how to properly use the machines we had. Neither we, nor the farmers — our main partners — had such skills. We needed help and understanding of when and how much to irrigate. So, quite by chance, we met representatives of Valmont Group and got to know a specialist from Brazil, who told us a lot of interesting things about irrigation. Some time later, company representatives came back to Ukraine. Close communication developed, and in 2018 we signed an agreement to use the irrigation-management program.»
Mykola Chernysh
Production director of “MAS Seeds Ukraine”
This is the Valley Scheduling program, which lets you manage all irrigation equipment remotely. As Valley Scheduling representative in Ukraine Viktor Skrypnyk explained, the app’s key function is constant field monitoring. The system lets you track how well plants are supplied with moisture and when they need watering. On top of that, it has a watering-planning function that accounts for the weather forecast for the next 5-7 days.
Viktor Skrypnyk, Valley Scheduling representative in Ukraine
Mykola Chernysh shares that he finds it more convenient to use the mobile app, since he can check all the necessary information at any time.
«In three minutes you can check three fields at once (smiles — ed.). The program lets our field team use it online. Accordingly, they can log every action they take in the app. What’s more, it lets you not only plan irrigation and track in real time how many millimeters of rainfall have fallen, but also monitor the stress curve — the soil moisture-holding balance. On top of that, you can enter additional stress factors into the program and save all your process operations», — explains the production director.
“MAS Seeds Ukraine” plant land-reclamation manager Serhiy Avramenko tells us about Valley Scheduling’s functionality. He was the first at the plant to start mastering the program, three years ago. Among the platform’s advantages, he names its ability to build an archive of information on every field, hybrid, yield, and even the weather conditions in any given year. Using this information, specialists can analyze problems with yield and seed quality. The app can also calculate the cumulative temperature for each hybrid, though that requires building a 5-year database.
Serhiy Avramenko, land-reclamation manager at the “MAS Seeds Ukraine” plant
As our host notes, the platform lets farmers save money. Many of them still haven’t learned to work properly with an irrigation system. They turn it on and just flood the fields. This way, they not only harm the plants — since waterlogging can lead to fungal diseases — but also waste enormous amounts of money on water and fuel for generators. Whereas with this program, a farmer can calculate those costs in a matter of minutes.
«The system accounts for the plot’s area, the application rate, the machine’s travel speed. Based on this data it calculates how long it will take the machine to water the field, and can even plan irrigation 1-2 weeks ahead.»
Serhiy Avramenko
Land-reclamation manager at the “MAS Seeds Ukraine” plant
It’s worth noting that the system automatically calculates soil moisture. Before the season starts, soil samples are taken at every farm and its hydrophysical properties are analyzed. That data is entered into the program. Afterward, factoring in these readings and the area’s climate data, the system automatically calculates soil moisture. The agronomy team’s task then is to maintain the necessary soil moisture level, following the chart.
This year, to ease the work of field agronomists and avoid the human factor when collecting data on rainfall and irrigation in the fields, they installed a real-time Aqua Trac device. It connects to all the probes and soil-moisture sensors to determine moisture content, temperature and soil salinity. They were satisfied with the experiment.
«First, the system rules out the human factor. Second, it eases the work: it collects information from soil-moisture sensors and transmits the data automatically. Third, if it’s rained, we can’t drive out to the field that same minute. By the time we get there, there’ll be much less water in the tensiometer. But here, sensor data is transmitted instantly», — explains Serhiy Avramenko.
At the end of the conversation, our host added with a smile that Valley Scheduling also helps him practice his English. He deliberately hasn’t switched the menu from English to Ukrainian, so as to build his vocabulary.
Bringing digitalization to the masses
However, the technologies listed above don’t always find a receptive audience among farmers, due to a lack of time and simple unfamiliarity with all the software’s nuances. According to Mykola Chernysh, in the future they plan to promote farmers using the Valley Scheduling app independently.
«As our next step, together with the ASA “Astra” company, we’re planning to hold joint training. We’ll invite our farmers as producers, ourselves as the company acting as the client, and the equipment-supplier company. We’ll work together.»
Mykola Chernysh
Production director of “MAS Seeds Ukraine”
As Valley Scheduling representative in Ukraine Viktor Skrypnyk noted, the agricultural community needs to come to understand and recognize the importance of linking irrigation equipment with an irrigation-control system. Not all farmers have enough knowledge to plan watering correctly. Some rely on their own experience or a certain understanding of plant needs, but that knowledge doesn’t always match the real state of things.
The “MAS Seeds Ukraine” plant
The company’s specialists have hundreds of irrigation studies at their disposal, all saved and systematized. Working from this, farmers who use this data don’t “read tea leaves” — they take a professional approach to the irrigation process.
Land market vs. irrigation
During the Hydro Tour, after studying the successful experience of growing crops under irrigation in one of Ukraine’s driest corners, one question kept coming up: why do some enterprises want to develop and get harvests even on unirrigated land, while others let things run their course? What holds back the development of Ukraine’s irrigation market? The answer turned out to be simple.
As “OTP Leasing” small- and medium-business sales head Yuriy Kucherenko explained, the problem lies in the land market.
«What holds this back is the moratorium on the land market. To implement irrigation on your fields, you need confidence in tomorrow. If we’re talking about a land market, there simply isn’t one right now. Accordingly, investing huge sums of money in land is quite risky. Though in the south, people have no other choice.»
Yuriy Kucherenko
Small- and medium-business sales head at “OTP Leasing”
In his view, the irrigation-equipment market will develop more intensively once the land market launches, when farmers will understand what exactly they’re investing in. Valmont’s territorial representative for irrigation-equipment sales, Serhiy Melnychenko, agrees with this view.
«Statistics for this year and last show a decline in machinery imports. I link that to the situation on the land market. It’s a painful issue. It’s precisely what’s holding back the irrigation market from growing at full strength. Farms have started accumulating money primarily to buy land, and have put off all other investments. I’m sure that if this issue were resolved, machine sales would multiply several times over.»
Serhiy Melnychenko
Valmont’s territorial representative for irrigation-equipment sales
We’ve gotten our answers, met the enterprises — time to say goodbye to Dnipropetrovsk region. Ahead of us awaits a farm in Kyiv region, where they get 50 t/ha of potatoes under irrigation. What kind of farm is it? You’ll find out in our next installment. Stay with us.
