Irish UN funding to support Ukraine farming community

Up to 1,000 small family farms in Ukraine are to be supported with funding from the Department of Agriculture.
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue TD, met with the Ukrainian Ambassador to Ireland, Ms Larysa Gerasko, to announce his Department’s support for farmers in her home country.

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Minister McConalogue has announced that he has made €750,000 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 illegal Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine.
It will assist them to meet their immediate food needs and resume food production activities that have been disrupted by military activity and occupation.

“I am very pleased that we can fund this important FAO project in Ukraine,” Minister McConalogue said.
“Ireland and Ukraine share many similarities – we are both rural and agricultural with farming playing a key role of our economies and societies.
“Farming, for both our nations, is part of the fabric of people.
“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.”

Minister McConalogue was joined at the announcement by Ukraine’s Ambassador to Ireland, Ms. Larysa Gerasko, who said: “Ireland has been there for Ukraine since the first day of the full-scale Russian invasion. The support of the people and the Government of Ireland is unprecedented. We are grateful that Ireland continues to be at the forefront of the humanitarian battle for the lives of the Ukrainian people.
“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.”

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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. With this contribution from Ireland, highly impacted and vulnerable households in frontline oblasts will be supported with poultry production kits consisting of 30 one-day-old chicks as well as animal feed and supplements.
“This support will enable rural families to resume production for their own household consumption and, in doing so, to meet their immediate food needs.”