The main crops in the cluster are corn, sunflower, wheat, and rapeseed. Over the past 5 years, rapeseed has seen an increase in planting to 16%, while cereal crops have decreased from 30 to 23%. Oats, barley, and rye are completely phased out of the crop rotation today, while soybeans are introduced in 2024, accounting for 23% of the planting area.

“Agro-Region Borzna” remains the leader within the Group of Companies in terms of corn yield, and the year 2023 was no exception, with a yield of 11.44 t/ha in calibrated weight. “Agro-Region Kozelets,” considering the weather conditions of the year, achieved a good result with wheat (at the level of 6.4 t/ha in calibrated weight) and rye (5.87 t/ha in calibrated weight).

The predominant soil types in the area include grey podzolic soils (40%) and chernozem-podzolic soils (40%), as well as meadow and peat-bog soils (up to 20%). The majority of the land has low (up to 2.0) or very low humus content, comprising up to 70%. Soils with average humus content (up to 3.0) make up 20%, while those with elevated humus content (up to 5) account for up to 10%. The presence of a significant amount of sands of various origins necessitates dealing with soil acidity ranging from alkaline soils (pH >7.5, 37%) to slightly acidic (21%), acidic (10%), and very acidic (6%) soils.

The specific nature of working with sandy soils necessitates reducing the area under traditional tillage, thus alternative approaches are employed: Strip-till involves targeted soil loosening in narrow strips combined with localized fertilizer application and the possibility of simultaneous precise seeding; Mini-till (vertical tillage); deep loosening; plowing remains on one-third of the area, with plans to allocate it for soybeans to avoid after-effects.

The cluster utilizes modern machinery, enabling high-quality and efficient precision farming practices, including Horsch Focus, Horsch Joker, Great Plains Turbo-max, Horsch Tiger, as well as modern tractors with 500-600 horsepower and other powerful and wide-ranging equipment.

The cluster employs various technologies and techniques for agricultural management, including Cropwise Operations for satellite monitoring of farmland, Climate FieldView™ for mapping and generating differential input maps, comprehensive field diagnostics provided by AgriLab, and equipment for precision planting and fertilizer application such as Amazone ZG-TS fertilizer spreaders, Horsch Maestro, and Horsch Focus seeders. Considering the specific characteristics of the land, soil liming has been carried out on 6,567 hectares (40%) of acidic soils, with plans to perform similar work on an additional 1,645 hectares. The cluster is actively experimenting with cover crops to improve the agronomic condition of sandy soils.

The cluster plans to increase storage capacity at its facilities, including expanding the elevator complex to 45,000 tons of storage and increasing daily drying capacity to 1,500 tons. Modernizing production facilities is crucial for the cluster, particularly refurbishing workshops, both the premises and equipment, to perform high-quality repairs on modern machinery.

“Agro-Region Kozelets” is the largest taxpayer in the Kozelets territorial community, contributing 9.3% to the budget, while “Agro-Region Borzna” ranks fifth (4.2%) among the largest contributors in the Borzna territorial community. The cluster is open to dialogue with communities and assists in implementing real community projects. For example, a project to alert beekeepers in the Kozelets territorial community has been implemented. In 2023, the cluster provided border villages with generators and Starlink. A waste sorting project was launched in the Patyutyn and Lykholitka territorial communities, with the community receiving funds from the sale of sorted recyclables.