European experience for vertical farming for Ukraine

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This article is prepared based on the materials of  Kurkul – interview with Viktor Shuleshko, founder of vertical farm Green Future and Association of City Farmers of Ukraine.  

It’s like we don’t exist legally, says Viktor Shuleshko, founder of the Green Future vertical farm. The city farmer supplies fresh greens to the ratail and HoReCa throughout Ukraine, but officially the farms cannot obtain the status of agricultural producers. The reason is that vertical farms do notoperate on agricultural land.  The newly created Association currently comprices of 10 members and is ready to meet this challenge among others.

How do the vertical farms operate in Ukraine in power outages?

Vertical farms cannot work without electricity, however compared to the conventional greenhouses, the vertical farming has an advantage – they do not require that much heating.  

To prepare for the blackouts all the automation on the vertical farms (pumps and other devices) was switched to backup power resources - batteries and inverters, they also installed timers. F.e. for a farm 200 m2 Viktor uses 10 kW generator which is apx 120 W per1m2. The growing racks light when there is electricity supply. When the power goes out, the generator turns on automatically.

Although light is very important, the farms of Viktor and his colleagues are unique not only for Ukraine but perhaps for EU by having experience of working on a 12-hour lighting cycle due to the efficiency of lamps they use. The parts of the greenhouse are illuminated in shifts of 12 hours each.

During blackouts, plants on a city farm grow apx 5-7 days longer. This results in higher production costs mainly due to the rental costs of premises. However the yield, it practically does not change. In the situation of full blackout, which happened at the beginning of full-scale war in 2022 when the farms did not have generators yet, there was clear that quality of plants begins to deteriorate rapidly after 4 days of power outage. 

Assortment

Most city farmers start with basil as a basic crop. Now Ukrainian retail is also interested in wider assortment: amaranth, pak choi, cilantro, and green onion. Production of different crops are being tested throughout Ukraine mainly focused on import substitution in winter months.

Since the price for locally produced greens in winter is higher than imported, the main competitive advantage is freshness. The product is delivered from the farm to the retail in 2 hours.

There are mainly three categories of greens in retail in Ukraine: cut, packaged mixes and fresh greens in substrate. The later produced at vertical farms. This category has to longest shelf life and cooperation with retail goes without returns.

There trials of production of industrial hemp in a city farms are going on with the long-term goal to learn the technology for cultivation of medical cannabis when the legislation will be finally in place for export.

This season we failed with hemp trials. According to Ukrainian legislation, technical hemp (field crop) can only be planted until the beginning of June. The legislation does not cover the norms for the indoor hemp production,says Viktor.

Association of City Farmers on Ukraine

After creation early this year, the association members now are building a structure and defining goals. The main goal is to integrate vertical farms into the Ukrainian agribusiness system to be able to register as agricultural producer.

Here is an example. I wanted to apply for a grant from FAO. I went through all the stages. But I could not complete the application, because I could not provide the certificate of lease or ownership of agricultural land, Viktor explains.

Vertical farms are in the situation of legal confusion since for production does not need agricultural land, the operation is arranged in premises. For this reason the vertical farm producers cannot be registered in Ukrainian State Agrarian Register as agricultural producers, but as just producers.

Therefore, together with other vertical farmers we created the Association to defend the rights of city farmers, change the legislation, and ensure that vertical farms are recognized as agricultural production without registering a land plot, Victor explains. 

Currently, there are 10 vertical farms in the association, the large producers who cover the demands of the fresh greens market throughout Ukraine. The association is open for the new members.

State support of the sector

The association will focus of the communication with the Ukrainian Ministry in order to introduce the specific changes to the legislation that will include vertical farms into agricultural production.

(See also State support of horti sector in Ukraine )

Secondly, the association will lobby introduction of the quality mark for the products of vertical farms, which are different from both imported and greenhouse products. The price for the imported products is growing, however their quality due to long logistic chain is getting worse. Therefore, the Association members believe that in 3-4 years they will be able to compete on price with imported products.

We also believe in cooperation with EU counterparts, f.e. European Association of Vertical Farming, or FAO, since there are examples that European legislation can be implemented in certain Ukrainian sector. Therefore, we are in favor of European legislation on vertical farms operating in our country as well, Viktor concluded.

Source: Не механізатор і не фермер: як вертикальний аграрій стикається з бюрократією — КУРКУЛЬ

Author of the Ukrainian text: © Юлія Маковей, Kurkul.com, 2026