Three waves of frost. Who will go bankrupt, and who will make money?

Over the past two years, Ukraine has experienced a boom in gardening. Farmers and politicians took out loans and grants for gardens, which were to eventually become their "pension funds." Investments per hectare started at 800,000 hryvnias, and over 1 billion hryvnias were invested in gardens in 2023-2024. But in recent weeks, we have seen this financial model collapse before our eyes – because of the weather.

How are waves of frost destroying the harvest? What will happen to apples, berries, and grapes? Can we hope for fruit imports? Where are gardeners looking for support? LIGA.net investigated.

Frozen – what and who has it

Two powerful waves of frosts – in mid-April and early May – left most owners of sweet cherry, sour cherry, apricot and peach orchards without a harvest. "The harvest of stone crops in Transcarpathia and Bukovina has been destroyed by 100%, and it is there that they specialize in early varieties. – In the south, such losses reach 60%," Taras Mynko, head of the Ukrsadprom association, told LIGA.net. In his opinion, this year we need to prepare for a shortage of sweet cherry, sour cherry and peaches.

Hopes that the deficit will be covered by cheap imports are in vain. In Romania and Bulgaria, the weather has lost 80% of the harvest in orchards. In the first decade of April, Turkey was hit by frost to -15 degrees – the lowest temperature since the 1990s. This led to the death of most of the harvest of leading export crops – peaches, persimmons, figs, grapes and nuts (hazelnuts, walnuts and almonds).