OREANDA-NEWS. June 19, 2012. HarvEast agricultural holding began to harvest its winter grain crops.

The Crimean entities of the holding based in Dzhankoyskiy, Krasnogvardeyskiy, Kirovskiy and Simferopolskiy districts were the first to start. Last year they sowed 8,600 hectares of these crops including 5,100 of wheat and 3,500 of barley.

In total the holding sowed 177,500 hectares of various crops, particularly 96,100 of winter and spring cereals and legumes, 50,400 of industrial crops and 30,700 of forage crops to be harvested in 2012.

HarvEast Holding is an agricultural holding, which owns and manages assets in Donetsk, Zaporozhye, Cherkassy, Zhytomir Oblasts and the Crimea. The Holding's major areas of focus include: crop raising (wheat, sunflower, barley, permanent grasses, corn and forage sorghum) and dairy farming.

HarvEast Holding was established on 10 March 2011. It evolved from the assets previously owned by Ilyich Steel Plant (Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine) and transferred to the holding in autumn 2011. The overall bank of farmland will make around 220,000 hectares and total livestock will exceed 30,000 heads. The Holding is going to present its first strategy for the public in mid-2012.

The shareholders of HarvEast Holding are the SCM Group and Smart Holding.