Fertilizers at 40,000 and diesel at almost 90 UAH: how the 2026 sowing campaign became more expensive for farmers
Kyiv • UNN
The price of a ton of carbamide exceeded 40 thousand hryvnias, and a liter of fuel at retail reaches 90 hryvnias. The sowing campaign is delayed by two weeks due to weather conditions.
The 2026 spring sowing campaign in Ukraine is delayed, amid more expensive resources, personnel shortages, and increased military risks.
Large agricultural companies are forced to revise technological maps and crop structures. For small and micro-farms, the situation is tougher: they buy resources in smaller batches, often without discounts, have worse access to credit, and are more dependent on retail fuel prices. That is why the increase in the cost of sowing in 2026 primarily affects small producers.
UNN spoke with Pavlo Koval, CEO of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation, about how much this year's sowing costs and what challenges it has already posed for farmers.
Interim results: sowing-2026 started slower
According to the UNN interlocutor, about two-thirds of the regions have currently joined active sowing work, and 16-17 regions have directly started sowing operations. The largest areas of early crops were traditionally sown by the southern regions. In particular, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. In total, it was about more than half a million hectares of early grain and leguminous crops.
At the same time, Pavlo Koval emphasized that this is a low indicator for the current period. The sowing, according to his assessment, was delayed by approximately two weeks compared to the average indicators of previous years. The reason is the impact of unfavorable weather conditions, which created additional challenges for small farmers and large agricultural producers, because now a significant part of farms may find themselves in a situation where early and late crops will have to be sown almost simultaneously.
Our sowing campaign was delayed by about 10-15 days, if we compare it on average with previous years. And we may have a situation where we will have to sow early and late crops at the same time, because the terms will be tight
And, therefore, it will be about additional load on equipment, people, logistics and working capital. For a small farm that does not have a large fleet of equipment or a reserve of workers, such a tight schedule immediately increases the risk of disruption of individual operations or forced savings on technology.
Fuel, fertilizers and logistics: why sowing in Ukraine has sharply increased in price
The key reason for the increase in the cost of the campaign in 2026 is the increase in the cost of basic resources.
Pavlo Koval explained that the situation was worsened by new external factors related to instability in energy markets. According to him, the escalation in the Middle East and the situation around the Strait of Hormuz affected both the oil market and the cost of products related to the production of fertilizers and fuel.
For farmers, international instability immediately hit their wallets. While a large enterprise can still buy diesel in bulk, store it, and partially offset fluctuations, micro and small producers often operate differently. They buy fuel at retail, without significant reserves, and that is why they are the first to feel the rise in prices at gas stations.
If you look at the retail price of diesel fuel today, and the retail price is often the price for micro and small producers. There are regions where a liter of diesel fuel (was sold, – ed.) was already almost 90 hryvnias. Well, 87 UAH (it was recently, – ed.), practically at all national large networks (gas stations, – ed.)
The second element of pressure is mineral fertilizers. According to the expert, a ton of carbamide already costs more than 40 thousand hryvnias. This is a level at which, even with a relatively good grain price, the farm needs to sell a significant volume of products just to purchase one type of resource.
To buy a ton of carbamide, you need to sell 4 tons of wheat at today's good prices
In addition, the costs of seeds, plant protection products, labor, and logistics are increasing. Some of these resources are imported, so any complication of supply or increase in transportation costs is automatically included in the cost price.
Why small farms suffer the most
As the expert explained, the increase in the cost of sowing does not affect all participants in the agricultural sector equally.
Large companies still benefit from the "economy of scale": large-batch purchases, better price conditions, more opportunities for resource storage, easier access to banks, and higher resistance to short-term fluctuations. Small farmers have significantly fewer such opportunities.
Therefore, Pavlo Koval says that it is precisely in small and medium-sized farmers that the margin narrows when the entire production chain becomes more expensive. Such farms buy in small batches, do not have significant discounts on fuel, material resources, or when selling their own products. In fact, a small producer gets a more expensive input and a weaker negotiating position at the output.
A separate risk is lending. If a farm has already spent some resources in the fall, and now has to re-sow winter crops or re-enter the field, it needs a second round of financing. And it is here that small farmers can run into a solvency limit.
Most likely, (lending, – ed.) is also becoming more complicated. Imagine a small farmer who needs to finance the sowing campaign twice. He has already pledged everything he had. Loans from banks may be closed to him until the second round of sowing
This problem is particularly acute for farms that operate on a limited land bank and do not have a financial "cushion." For them, even one unsuccessful crop, one delay in sales, or one jump in fuel prices can mean a loss of profit for the season.
Geography of sowing-2026: why the south is in a high-risk zone
Separately, Pavlo Koval drew attention to the specifics of the southern regions. There is a narrower choice of crops, a more acute problem of moisture deficiency, and more restrictions on re-sowing.
Thus, in some areas, corn sowing is not considered at all due to high complex risks. If rapeseed or winter barley has to be re-sown, the farm faces not only new costs but also technological limitations due to the after-effect of herbicides.
In such a situation, farmers are forced to look towards alternative crops — millet, flax, certain niche positions. But here, too, there is an economic limitation: the domestic market for such crops is small, so it is difficult to sow large areas with them without the risk of sales problems.
That is, the farm's choice is reduced simultaneously with the deterioration of the financial model.
What will happen to crop profitability in summer-autumn
According to Pavlo Koval, the traditional grain group in 2026 may have a low margin. Costs are rising, and the selling price is not showing the same rate of increase. As a result, some crops may break even or even go into the red.
A situation may arise where, say, wheat will have zero profitability, and crops such as barley, oats, spring wheat may (go to zero or even into the red, – ed.)
That is why farmers are now forced to calculate not only yields, but also sales logistics, access to processing, and the real, not expected, profitability of each crop.
Against this background, oilseeds may receive more attention from farmers. The reason is the growing interest in biofuels and raw materials for them due to rising oil prices on the world market.
In particular, rapeseed may come into the focus of Ukrainian farmers. At the same time, the situation with soybeans is not so clear-cut. According to Koval, the domestic price of soybeans is approximately $30-50 per ton lower than the export price, which reduces its attractiveness for some producers.
Personnel shortage and military factor as permanent challenges for Ukrainian farmers
Even if a farm finds money for fuel and fertilizers, there is still another barrier — the human factor.
Pavlo Koval, in an interview with UNN, emphasized the acute personnel shortage in micro, small, medium, and even large agricultural enterprises. After all, some workers were mobilized, some farms could not obtain critical status, and some veterans who returned from the front cannot fully perform heavy physical work due to health reasons.
As a result, sowing may take place in a two-shift mode, when it is necessary to simultaneously complete the harvesting of last year's crops, prepare fields, re-sow winter crops, and start sowing late crops. For small farms, this will result in dependence on a few key employees.
Separately, the security factor has a negative impact, especially in frontline regions. There, agriculture is conducted under the constant threat of attacks, and this directly affects the pace of work, the availability of transport, and human losses.
Despite this, the 2026 sowing campaign does not stop. But at the same time, it is no longer possible to ignore the fact that the campaign has become significantly more expensive and more selective regarding who will be able to go through it without critical losses.
According to Pavlo Koval, there are currently no signs of mass withdrawal of land from cultivation, but the very logic of cultivation and sowing has changed.
Today, crop selection is a strategy. You need to think about several crops, you need to calculate the profitability of each, you need to optimize the technological map and the set of technological operations, you need to calculate every drop of diesel fuel and every spoonful of mineral fertilizers
This, in turn, will result in a number of restraining factors for the small farmer. It will be about strict savings, abandoning some usual solutions, and moving to maximally precise planning. It is in this segment that sowing will become most expensive: due to retail fuel, more expensive fertilizers, weaker access to credit, personnel shortages, and a smaller margin of safety. In such conditions, the result of the campaign will be determined by the weather, yields, and how well the farm manages to keep costs within limits that still allow it to operate without direct losses.
Earlier, we already wrote that the 2026 sowing campaign in Ukraine is starting against the backdrop of a combination of resource and military risks that can affect both the pace of field work and the cost of the future harvest. Among the key factors, farmers name a possible increase in fuel prices due to the escalation in the Middle East and risks to the logistics of imported energy carriers, especially during peak loads in regions where work starts earlier.