OREANDA-NEWS. Executive President of Ukraine's rapeseed producer Ukrzernoprom Agro Eugene Leng shared his view during last week’s investment forum about the global price trends for agricultural commodities. The main message of his presentation was that the era of cheap food and fuel is over due to several factors, including rising food consumption in Asian countries, gradually increasing demand for biofuels, particularly in EU countries that require larger areas of land for industrial crops. Combined with the overall scarcity of arable land, all of these factors will contribute to increases in feedstock prices, including wheat, corn and rapeseed.

According to Alfa Capital Ukraine, Leng noted that in his opinion there are only two places in the world that can provide agricultural commodities in the appropriate amounts – Latin America and Ukraine. Ukraine currently has 41.7 mln hectares of agricultural land vs. 157 mln hectares in all of the EU25. Leng talked about the need to create a large agricultural company that would operate on Ukraine’s fertile soil and produce crops. In the medium term, Leng sees Ukrzernoprom Agro becoming one of the largest rapeseed producers in Europe.