On May 21, leading voices from Ukraine’s agricultural and agri-food business gathered for an exclusive meeting with Diia.City United members and Oleksandr Bornyakov, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation. The Ministry’s team joined the conversation too — in particular, Oleksii Dobronravov, Legal Lead at Diia.City’s project office. It was an extremely productive event!

Big thanks to our partners UCAB for making this meeting happen — and to UCAB General Director Oleg Khomenko for his support and personal involvement.

We looked at where Ukraine’s agri-food sector stands on the digitalization journey — and where it could go next. The conversation touched on:

  • current digital practices in agro,
  • bottlenecks that block innovation,
  • and how Diia.City’s legal and tax framework can support faster tech adoption.

From Tech Potential to Real Tools

At the start of the meeting, participants reviewed highlights from UCAB’s recent survey of 43 agri-enterprises managing over 1.7 million hectares of land.

The numbers show encouraging progress: nearly 90% use GPS monitoring for equipment, 80% have adopted ERP systems, 78% utilize vehicle GPS trackers, and 69% deploy drones for agricultural monitoring.

Many companies are also investing in automation, analytics, and digital farm management tools. But digital transformation still faces serious roadblocks.

The top 3 barriers?

  • High implementation costs
  • Resistance to change within teams
  • Poor integration between existing systems

This is a real big issue when a large holding has precision farming and equipment tracking solutions that don’t integrate with each other properly, constant data conflicts occur making it impossible to move forward with this data… — Sofia Yakymenko, legal advisor to UCAB on a common problem of agro companies in the digitalization process.

So what they first pay their attention to are: proven implementation records, ease of integration with existing systems, and a clear economic effect.

Top priority business processes for optimization in agro-companies:

  • Farmland management
  • Equipment and fuel usage
  • Logistics
  • Fertilizer management
  • Agro-scouting
  • Market analytics

Big thanks to Sophia Yakymenko for her insightful presentation!

Diia.City: R&D Opportunities + Tax Benefits 

Oleksandr Bornyakov, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation explained:

Diia.City is now open to supporting tech divisions of agri-food businesses — offering new tools for tax optimization, R&D development, and attracting international investment.

Oleksii Dobronravov detailed the prospects for  the development of agri-food enterprises in the Diia.City space and answered all questions of meeting participants.

He emphasized that Diia.City is actively expanding its list of eligible business activities, and agri-food industry can already have the ecosystem’s advantages. All they need to do is separate digital departments or R&D units for residency. 

Diia.City United is here to support agri-food business on this journey: from ecosystem onboarding and partner matchmaking to funding and solving deep-rooted system challenges. Some of our community members have already done it successfully — and shared their stories at the meeting.

Together, we’re building a future where Ukraine’s agriculture is powered by digital — smarter, faster, stronger.

Huge thanks to Oleksandr Bornyakov, the Ministry team, and everyone at Diia.City for your openness and drive.
And to all participants — thank you for your energy, ideas, and readiness to move forward together.

This was just the beginning: more to come from the AgriFood x Tech — so stay tuned!