Tour group from Northern Ireland, part of the UK, population 1.75 million people, visited Ukraine for a ten day cultural and agricultural tour. By way of background, our farms are mainly owned by the farm family and they usually rent extra land on an annual basis. The main crop is grass, which is mostly grazed out in the field by ruminants and also made into silage for the main winter roughage. Our climate only allows us to grow corn, mainly under degradable plastic cover for silage use. Our much smaller fields are divided by hedges and barbed wire fences. All our corn, soya bean and sunflower have to be imported.

We flew into Kiev with UIA from London. Our tour area was south from Kiev to Odessa. We visited beef, dairy and arable farms and were very impressed with the quality of stock and crops. Your deep black, stone free and easily worked soil was admired with envy. The ability to combine corn or make silage with it is a tremendous asset for feeding stock as is the home production of soya bean and sunflower as protein sources. You can feed and manage ruminant stock solely from your own resources, which reduces cost of production. Your scale of operation was massive, with huge fields of 500 acres, without hedgerows or fences.

We enjoyed Ukrainian culture and impressive city tours in Kiev and Odessa. All the guides in Real Ukraine were very professional, knowledgeable and helpful, all in all a wonderful experience.

Mervyn Acheson
Group Leader