Soil fertility is a serious challenge to global agriculture. How to recover degraded soil and how to change agricultural business to prevent the degradation was the main theme of the II International Conference National challenge: soil degradation or restoring its fertility. MIM-Kyiv together with the BTU-CENTER, a Ukrainian manufacturer of microbial and enzyme preparations for agriculture, Organic Ukraine Union, and Global 100% RE Ukraine civic organization conducted the conference.

The fertile soil is shrinking all over the world. 95% of soils may degrade in 30 years. In Ukraine, soil fertility is compromised as well. The practitioners and researchers were sharing their experiences in preventing the bad scenario. The number of participants proved that the topic was timely. 

Olga Trofimtseva, President of the Ukrainian National Technological Platform “Agrofood Platform”, Acting Minister of Agrarian Policy 2019 said:

-      The whole world understands how urgent the challenge is. Scientists, business people, and government officials participated in the discussion. 

MIM-Kyiv promotes sustainable development ideas. Iryna Tykhomyrova, MIM-Kyiv’s president said that the school supports the dialogue between all stakeholders and implements sustainability ideas in its curriculums. She said:

- We are delighted to provide our facilities and experience for such a timely discussion. We believe that nobody could do business successfully unless they understand and follow the sustainability principles and care for green energy in day-to-day activities. It is today’s business dress code. 

Oleksandr Dombrovsky, chairman of the board of the Global 100% RE Ukraine mentioned that they had been discussing the conference for a year. They then believed that the word “challenge” had been too strong. However, nowadays it is clear that soil fertility is a widely-spread problem that calls for a complex solution. 

- We understand that soil fertility and its recovery is a global problem. On one hand, we need to feed people. On the other hand, we must preserve our planet. However, this situation is abundant in opportunities as well. I am grateful to MIM-Kyiv, our partner, for their understanding of the variety of our challenges. They created a discussion platform for all the stakeholders, he said.

During the conference, the participants identified the most pending problems, shared practical experiences and successful agricultural technologies, and identified the role of the public sector in keeping the soil fertile.