“Soybean amendment” is back: how the Verkhovna Rada changed the rules of the game in the agricultural market
17 July 20:27
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has supported amendment No. 40 to draft law No. 13134, which introduces a 10% duty on soybean and rapeseed exports starting September 1, 2025. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to the official website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
According to the text of the amendment, the duty will apply exclusively to traders, i.e. companies that purchase raw materials for further export. Farmers who export on their own will be exempt from the duty.
Although the authors of the amendment claim that its purpose is to support domestic processing, the agricultural community, analysts, and industry associations see the decision as a step backwards.
“Soybean amendment”: who will really benefit
Andriy Verevsky’s Kernel agricultural holding, a leader in the sunflower oil market and one of the largest grain exporters in Ukraine, will benefit the most from the innovation. In the last quarter, the company processed 93 thousand tons of soybeans and 14 thousand tons of rapeseed. It is clear that lower prices for raw materials in the domestic market due to export restrictions will increase the processing margin and allow Kernel to strengthen its market position.
At the same time, the KSE Institute estimates that small and medium-sized farmers will lose between UAH 280 and UAH 670 million annually due to lower purchase prices and less competition among traders.
Authors’ position: benefits for the budget and the new Farmers’ Support Fund
The co-author of the amendment, MP from the Servant of the People faction Dmytro Kysylevskyi, claims that the duty will allow the budget to attract an additional UAH 7.3 billion and about $238 million in foreign exchange earnings annually. According to his statement, these funds should go to a special fund managed by the Cabinet of Ministers and be used to provide financial support to farmers.
However, it is not yet clear how this fund will work, how the money will be distributed, and which farmers will be eligible for assistance. There are already skeptical voices among farmers: they say that the formal “redistribution” looks more like manual market administration in favor of large players.
“Rapeseed amendment”: farmers will lose up to UAH 670 million annually
Agrarian associations UCAB (Ukrainian Agribusiness Club), AAC (All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council), and EBA (European Business Association) criticized the amendment. In their joint statements, they called it anti-investment and reducing the competitiveness of Ukrainian producers on the foreign market.
Serhiy Tigipko ‘s TAS Agro has already announced its intention to reconsider the acreage under rapeseed and soybeans next season. The business simply does not want to plant a crop that becomes less profitable under the new restrictions.
It’s not about processing: why amendment #40 is causing a scandal in the agro-industrial complex
The idea of the “soybean-rapeseed” amendment is not new: they already tried to push it through in the parliament in June 2025, but it did not get enough votes: the parliamentarians gave only 204 votes in favor. The second time, it was submitted as part of the law “On Integrated Prevention and Control of Industrial Pollution,” initiated by the then-prime minister Denys Shmyhal. This looks like an attempt at indirect lobbying with the argument that “it is more profitable to process in Ukraine than to export raw materials.”
Back in June, journalist Yevhen Plinsky warned that the facade of support for domestic processing hides a desire to control export flows through corrupt mechanisms.
This is not about supporting processing. It is more profitable to export soybeans and rapeseed under fictitious documents (as meal and bran) and process it at European plants, receiving foreign currency for offshore companies,” he said.
Plinsky explained that the attempt to introduce export taxes is a bid to raise the corruption and smuggling tariff.
Fictitious exports would cost fraudsters more money. That’s all the math,” the journalist summarized.
Agricultural experts are also concerned. They say that the innovation creates an asymmetry between large agricultural holdings and small farmers, creates risks of market shadowing, and calls into question the real purpose of the amendment. Under the slogan of “supporting processing,” Ukraine is actually changing the rules of the game for thousands of producers not in favor of free competition. How this will affect the acreage, foreign exchange earnings and prices on the domestic market will become clear in the coming months.
Read also: Deep processing: how agribusiness creates added value for the Ukrainian economy
What does the draft law No. 13134 say?
The draft law, which the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in the first reading on June 4, 2025, has little to do with agriculture in Ukraine. At one time, representatives of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council claimed that parliamentarians deliberately “sewed” amendment No. 40 into the draft law on medicines because they wanted to “make a decision behind the scenes, without professional discussions and without taking into account the opinion of the farming community.”
The document mentioned above aims to provide Ukrainian patients with wider access to vital and innovative medicines. Its key idea is to create a legal mechanism for the use in Ukraine of medicines that have not yet been fully registered but have already demonstrated efficacy and safety in clinical practice. To this end, the draft law introduces the possibility of concluding Managed Access Agreements, which will allow, under certain conditions, the use of medicines that are pending full authorization or have temporary authorization in the EU or the United States.
It is envisaged that such medicines may be used only after the relevant decisions are made by the regulatory authorities. The use of such medicines will be accompanied by ongoing safety monitoring, collection of data on treatment outcomes, and technical control. The draft law also aims to harmonize Ukrainian medical legislation with European standards, which is especially important in the context of Ukraine’s gradual integration into the EU internal market.
This step opens up opportunities for patients with rare or complex diseases to receive innovative treatment faster than traditional mechanisms allow. At the same time, the state is responsible for creating a system of accounting, control and reporting. The law may also provide importers and pharmaceutical businesses with flexible conditions for entering the Ukrainian market by reducing bureaucratic barriers.
However, in the process of finalizing the draft law for the second reading, a number of important issues need to be settled: sources of funding for such schemes, the procedure for providing drugs, the legal status of doctors and institutions that prescribe such treatment, and liability in case of complications.
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