berry growing

Ukraine has been the world leader in net exports of frozen raspberries since 2024 and may continue this trend in the 2026/27 marketing year.

Ukrainian berry farms are redirecting part of their production to foreign markets due to declining domestic consumption. The European Union remains the main destination, while producers have also been expanding their presence in the US in recent years.

At the end of the 2025/26 marketing year, Ukraine recorded record revenue from raspberry exports, while significantly reducing blueberry shipments to foreign markets.

Ukrainian raspberry and blueberry producers benefited from more favourable weather conditions in July, while the berry sectors in Poland and Serbia faced yield problems and labour shortages.

Fruity Polissia LLC plans to develop a blueberry growing, cooling, sorting, and packing complex in the Volyn region.

Certified areas of organic cultivated berries in Ukraine totaled 1.6 thousand hectares in 2025, which is nearly 100 hectares less than a year earlier.

Poland leads in terms of purchases of organic berries from Ukraine.

The war and the energy shock have transformed Ukraine’s greenhouse business, but it remains a strategically important sector. Western regions are gradually forming new greenhouse hubs. Those who focus on the latest technologies are the ones surviving. With energy costs rising to 60–70%, domestically grown greenhouse vegetables and herbs are becoming uncompetitive. In such conditions, it is cheaper to import produce.

As of 2024, the area under organic raspberry cultivation in Ukraine is estimated at 400–700 hectares. This remains a relatively small figure compared to the country’s total raspberry area of 6,000–7,500 hectares. The key raspberry-producing regions are Zhytomyr, Volyn, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, and Zakarpattia oblasts.

Ukraine is seeing a growing trend toward the localization and fragmentation of strawberry producers, as concentrating plantations in one location has become a highly risky and challenging decision due to labor shortages.

Farmer Yuriy Kushnir from Luhansk region, after the start of the war and his forced relocation to Poltava region, not only restored his farm but is also actively developing modern berry production. His approach combines experience, technology and a clear strategy: focusing on quality and staying ahead of the market.