There is a noticeable shortage of champignons on the Ukrainian market.
The owner of a mushroom farm, one of the largest in Ukraine, Mykola Levet, spoke about the plans of the enterprise, which was fired upon by Russian invaders.
Almost 300 tons of mushrooms were supposed to be harvested this spring for retail chains, but on February 24, war came to Pilipovka, Kyiv region, and all the staff had to leave the farm in a few days.
“It was prepared for growing mushrooms – everything is gone. It has deteriorated, rotted, blossomed. And now we are preparing the room. As you can see, a shell hit this room, it is in the room, it pierced the roof, did a little damage,” Nikolai showed the consequences of the occupation.
Huge shops with mushrooms for 2 months were unattended. Everything was covered in mold. Harvest and fertilizer – now humus. Tractors took out multimillion-dollar goods to the gardens of peasants.
However, Michael decided: you need to work on. Gathered a small team of locals, now they are repairing buildings and equipment.
“We have a lot of such installations, they were beaten by shrapnel, a shell hit here, 3 cameras were broken. A small fragment pierces the pipe through and through, it needs to be cut out. We have been doing this for 2 weeks, we are restoring it,” the entrepreneur shared.
Women clean mold from cameras.
“This was the only income. 3 cameras for my day”, “We did not go to Poland, we are not going anywhere. We love it, we love mushrooms, we love to eat, grow, collect and cut. Our management is very good. This is all not very terrible and gradually everything will be done. There are enough workers. There are builders, everything will be rebuilt, it just takes time, “the workers said.
To restore at the enterprise everything that was destroyed by the enemy army of the Russian Federation, the farmer needs at least 3 million hryvnias.
“There is no such turnover now. We hope that the state has offered. We actually need to resume finances in order to buy everything again. Therefore, we only hope so.
On the Ukrainian market, there is a shortage of champignons, but the arrival of large batches to store shelves is expected in the second half of May. Entrepreneur Nikolay is definitely convinced that he cannot leave his life’s work and continue to revive business in his country.
“Resources were invested, all knowledge and desires. We did not look when we go to bed, when we wake up. We will restore, there is inspiration to restore and we will continue. We will see the first mushrooms after the war somewhere on June 5-10. Everything will be Ukraine! Everything will be good! We will recover! We must work, do not give up,” summed up the owner of the farm.
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