Ukraine exported in July-December, the first six months of the current marketing year, 6.9 million metric tons of wheat, 4% more than in the corresponding period in the previous marketing year, the agriculture ministry reported Monday.

Due to populism and poor government policies, the pace of development is extremely disappointing. Ukraine has recovered its reputation as the breadbasket of Europe by posting record harvests in recent years, more than 52 and 48 million tons of grain in the past two seasons, respectively. Moreover, investment into the sector has increased sharply. However, I think that the pace of development is extremely disappointing and that Ukrainian governments did everything possible with poor policies to slow it down. Had they not, Ukraine’s agriculture sector would already be generating much larger harvests and at least twice as much value as it generates today.