Continental Farmers Group
Continental Farmers Group plc is a diversified agricultural producer with significant farming operations in northern Poland and western Ukraine. The Group's core business is crop production comprising oil seed rape, potatoes, wheat, sugar beet and maize. The Group's crops are sold when harvested or stored in the Group's storage facilities for later sale to the Ukrainian domestic market, Russia and the European Union.
CFG has been farming in Poland since 1994 and owns circa 1,600 hectares and leases a further 1,100 hectares under long term lease arrangements. The Polish operations concentrate primarily on intensive production of arable crops including sugar beet, winter and spring wheat and OSR.
CFG commenced farming operations in Ukraine in 2006 and since then has leased approximately 33,000 hectares of chernozem (black soil) farmland by way of land lease in the Lviv region in Western Ukraine. The availability of farmland at low cost and world class soil composition, climate and topography of Ukraine make it a desirable location for commercial farming. The Group's land bank consists primarily of five contiguous farm blocks organised in a cluster in close proximity to the city of Lviv, close to the eastern edge of the EU. Farming operations have been successfully expanded to approximately 32,000 hectares in 2013. In order to maintain the fertility of the land the Group grows OSR, wheat, maize, sugar beet and potatoes by rotation in keeping with best agronomic and environmental practice.
In June 2013, CFG was acquired by United Farmers Holding Company (‘UFHC’), which is owned by a consortium of Saudi Arabian entities. This acquisition supports the continued expansion of CFG towards the goal of expanding its Ukrainian activities and continuing to establish itself as a substantial producer of agricultural products in the region and beyond.