Seminar: Ecological Safety and Sustainable Agriculture

The seminar "Ecological Safety and Sustainable Agriculture" took place in Lviv in the frames of "AGROPORT West Lviv 2017" on the 27th of April 2017.


CCB's task is promotion of sustainable and safe methods of development in agriculture, organic production and share EU experience in water protection measures for achieving good status of water.

The seminar started with introductory words of Jakub Skorupski CCB's Chairman and greetings from two heads of the hosting organisations: Petro Hrytsyshyn (Western Center of the Ukrainian Branch "International Center for Scientific Culture - World Laboratory") and Natalya Cholovska (Lviv Municipal Public Organization "Ecoterra")

The first speaker Maria Basova (Manager of the Program of Coalition Clean Baltic, Uppsala, Sweden) presented briefly CCB's background and tasks, touched upon the challenges at Baltic Sea Region and importance of surface waters protection in the Baltic Sea basin. The special part of presentation was dedicated to EU Water Directive harmonization in Ukraine.

Jakub Skorupski (Chair of Coalition Clean Baltic and expert on ecologically safe industrial animal and poultry farming, Szczecin, Poland) presented "Environment protection measures in the industrial livestock farming". He talked about the consequences of the industrial animal farming on the Baltic Sea environment, location of the hot spots and legislation in this area. Problem and threats of IAF for the region as well as solutions were shown.

Ruslan Bilyk, Facilitator Dairy Swiss-Ukrainian Project “Organic Market Development in Ukraine” Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), was talking about FiBL work in Ukraine, promotion of organic agriculture, Ukrainian legislation in this field and update on the current status. Certification and requirements for organic products. He also talked about quality and safety as the priorities of the work with organic agriculture.

Olexander Bohachyk (consultant in Ukraine, expert on animal welfare questions - COMPASSION IN WORLD FARMING) introduced the questions of animals welfare. He stressed the importance of fulfillment of the EU directives requirements in context of association with EU and pointed on necessary steps in this direction. Moreover it was mentioned about giving Ukrainian consumers different choices and transparency of information about ways of producing products.

Professor Józef Tyburski from the Varminsko-Mazurskyi University, expert in organic farming (Olsztyn, Poland) presented "The role and the need of soil fertility improvement on organic farms". He talked about usage of fertilizers in organic agriculture. The scientific approach was presented and clear examples were shown in order to strengthens the understanding of necessity of measurement PH in soils and making the chemicals analysis.

Gunnar Norén (senior advisor of Coalition Clean Baltic, expert on ecologically balanced agriculture and eco-sanitary, Uppsala, Sweden) presented "Sustainable sanitation and wastewater management in Sweden". He pointed out why the problem appeared and historical facts about wastewater treatment in Sweden. The technology of a separate toilet was presented to the audience. Many good examples for local wastewater treatment solutions were given with calculation of the costs.

Nataliya Cholovska, president of LMPO “Ecoterra” (Lviv, Ukraine) talked about "Development of organic production - guarantee of the ecological safety in the region". He presented the structure of livestock in Ukraine and local social and environmental problems connected with IAF. The lists of the producers and processors of organic products in West Ukraine divided by regions were shown. The experience of "The Family Basket" as a project of promotion organic & local food in Lviv was discussed.

Petro Hrytsishyn (Ph.D., expert on eco-sanitary, Director of the Western Center of Ukrainian Branch of the World Laboratory, Lviv, Ukraine) presented "Safe eco-sanitary means of effluents decrease in the countryside of Ukraine". Petro showed connection of SDG 2030 with local sanitation challenges, clarified the local legislation in the field and river basin principle, presented 3 alternative methods of wastewater treatment which could be applied for rural areas in Ukraine.

Maria Stanishevska, an expert on organic agriculture from Polish Ecological Club (Glivitse, Poland) talked about "Constructed wetlands in Poland – alternative means of solving sanitary problems in organic farming". She showed the consequences of eutrophication in Baltic Sea, introduced local wastewater systems and solutions for households. The calculation of the construction and exploitation was given. Separate part of presentation was dedicated to hydrofito solutions in wastewater treatment.

Olexander Dzhyha a farmer and expert on fruit and vegetable farming  from Vinnitsa, Ukraine, presented his own work and experience as an organic farmer. He mentioned the importance of chemical analysis of soils and presented "farmer welfare pyramid". The key of success and good harvest is in keeping good biodiversity of soils. The method of enriching soils with microorganisms, bacteria and mushrooms which Oleksandr used at his farm were presented.

The seminar ended with the presentation of Andriy Antonyuk (head of the initiative group on development of the Project on creation of biogas installation in Kamyanka-Busk District of Lviv Region, co-founder of “Small and Medium-size Business Agency”) about "Solution of community’s ecological problems by processing of agricultural wastes in biogas installation, energy and organic fertilizers production". He stressed that active local community is a recipe of solution of the environmental problems on the local level. The example of the project of biogas plant, as a solution for agricultural waste, energy production and source of organic fertilizer were presented experience of local communities involvement into the environmental management.

All the participants were thankful to CCB and local partners for organizing such an informative and well-composed event. The importance of EU experience was noticed from the local environmental institutions and universities  in this questions and necessity to have a platform for learning and discussion. The students showed great interest to the seminar as well.

Reference: AGROPORT is one of the biggest events of the agrarian sphere in Eastern Europe. Since 2016 the International Forum for the development of Farming AGROPORT has been held in two cities, covering individual interests of western and eastern agricultural producers. Forum is supported by the Ministry of Agricultural Policy and Food of Ukraine and Lviv regional state administration. The organizers are the Department of Agricultural Development of Lviv Regional State Administration and Aviabrand LLC.

AGROPORT West Lviv 2017, which was held on April 27-29, focused on small and medium farmers. The key topics were animal husbandry, crop production, growing organic products, berries, vegetable-growing, horticulture, fisheries and others. In 2017, special attention was paid to the problems of adapting agriculture to climate change conditions: increase of productivity in terms of changes and transition to the safe and accurate technologies.

The Agenda of the Seminar in English can be found here.

The Agenda of the Seminar in Ukrainian can be found here.

The event is a part of CCB's activities in Ukraine supported by the EU LIFE Programme and Swedish aid via