On the Path to Precision Farming: How Hennadii Hadzovskyi Is Transforming His Farms

Our conversation turned out to be both interesting and timely. We talked about success, the ability to respond to challenges, what matters to us today, and what we dream of achieving.

– Hennadii Leonidovych, what lies behind the name Vasiuty Agricultural Company?

– It is a 2,000-hectare farm in Volyn Region, near Kovel, with a large block of land to the right of the M07 highway, commonly known as the Warsaw Highway. There is also the neighbouring Bilynske Agricultural Company. The two farms are now part of the same group under the National Agricultural Company holding. However, within the agricultural community, I am better known for Vasiuty, which I have owned for nine years. We started with 800 hectares and eventually expanded to 2,000 hectares. In some places, we simply added land; in others, we had to clear bushes and trees. This summer, I increased our total land bank to 7,000 hectares.

– You added 5,000 hectares in a single season? That is an incredible leap.

– The war created this opportunity. In May this year, my investment partner, Viktor Bazylchuk, offered to join forces in a new agricultural project. I would contribute my expertise in crop production, while he would bring financial resources and an investment vision. Together, we acquired 5,000 hectares in southern Ukraine, in Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, along with an elevator with a capacity of 12,000 tonnes. The previous foreign owners had operated these farms for ten years, but when the war came close to their land, they decided to leave Ukraine. We recognised the opportunity at the right time and acted on it.

We acquired three businesses: Krynychanske LLC, Amber Agro LLC and Yuzhne LLC, which we brought together under the SVITFARM brand. In this project, I serve as the technical expert and operations director. In practice, I perform a similar operational role at Vasiuty in Volyn, even though I am also its owner.

Expertise and Experience: The Foundations of Success

– Tell us about the beginning of your career. Where are you from, how did you enter the agricultural business, where did you gain experience, and who were your mentors?

– I come from Myronivka District, specifically from the village of Tsentralne, a settlement associated with plant breeders and researchers. My father was the director of the Elita experimental farm at the V. M. Remeslo Myronivka Institute of Wheat. My father was friends with Vasyl Mykolaiovych, and I later became friends with his grandson. That is how the generations are connected. My professional development began there, at the institute.

In 1998, I graduated with honours from the agronomy faculty of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. Every year of my studies, including my practical training, I spent at the institute, working in experimental wheat fields and learning the basics of my future profession under renowned plant breeders.

However, I gained more practical experience after graduation, first at Agroprogress under Volodymyr Levchenko and then through intensive training at MHP under Yurii Kosiuk. He is an exceptionally strong personality and an outstanding leader. From him, I learned a fundamental philosophy: do not try to do a hundred things at once. Focus only on those that deliver the greatest efficiency.

Another lesson from him has always served me well: learn how to motivate the people around you. Later, I worked with Vitalii Tsekhmistrenko and Oleh Bakhmatiuk. I developed grain elevators and built a feed mill. At the same time, I completed my studies at Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, and an irresistible desire to build my own business emerged. In 2016, I became the owner of a bankrupt farm.

– How long did it take you to make the farm profitable?

– Four years. During the first three years, I worked to establish a proper agronomic foundation on the land and clean up fields that were heavily infested with weeds. At the same time, the market experienced considerable volatility between 2016 and 2019. Eventually, we became profitable, and I began to see a future ahead.

This is a real pattern in agriculture: by your third year of working the land, you begin to understand what you are doing, why you are doing it, whom you are working with, and what kind of profit those decisions can generate.

– People often say that problems are the best school, and that solving them helps develop both an agronomist and a manager.

– That is absolutely true. One of the first things I discovered at this farm was the enormous variability of its soils. At the time, I did not fully understand the extent of the problem. I realised it later. However, this very soil variability was what pushed me towards precision farming in 2019. We have around ten different soil types and subtypes. This had a significant impact on both production costs and yields.

Today, all 2,000 hectares of Vasiuty in Volyn are fully digitised, and we have been practising precision farming for four years. We are fully self-sufficient in terms of machinery and carry out all operations ourselves, with the exception of drone spraying for sunflower desiccation.

We desiccate the sunflower area that will subsequently be planted with winter wheat. This allows us to harvest the sunflower earlier, prepare the field for the next crop sooner, apply fertiliser and sow within the optimal agronomic window. The drone is the only piece of equipment I have not purchased, and it is not currently on my plans. Otherwise, our tillage, seeding and harvesting equipment—including planters, tractors and combines—is modern and well equipped.

– Does precision farming mean using equipment from a single manufacturer?

– No, we use different brands. Our tractors are John Deere, and our combines are Claas Lexion. We have three seeders: a Kinze equipped with Precision Planting technology, a Väderstad Tempo with several Precision Planting options, and a Horsch Pronto DC 6, which we use to sow rapeseed, wheat and soybeans. All our seeders can apply liquid fertilisers.

I have also worked closely with the biotechnology company BTU for a long time. I am one of those agronomists who believe in microbiology. I use bacteria in every crop in our rotation, and I am proud of this approach. I have high hopes for the biological improvement of our soils.

We have also signed an agreement with Agreena and joined the AgreenaCarbon programme to implement regenerative farming practices. We hope to obtain carbon certificates and receive income from them. We are waiting for Verra certification and plan to enter the international market as a group of like-minded farmers to secure the best possible price.

From Ploughs to Artificial Intelligence: The Evolution of Precision Farming

– Joining this programme is changing the way you manage your soil, isn’t it?

– Yes, dramatically. Until recently, we used a plough, just like everyone around us. Our neighbours ploughed, so we did too. Now we are taking a different path, moving away from conventional tillage towards more conservation-oriented farming. Carbon certification programmes categorically rule out ploughing.

Satellites take images several times a day, so there is no way to conceal ploughing. It can be seen today, as well as in images from one or five years ago. We have switched to shallow tillage. We accumulate crop residues at a depth of 10–12 cm and add bacteria and stubble decomposers to them.

Natural decomposition of crop residues takes three to four years, but we need to accelerate the process by at least half. With our current technology, we can shorten the time needed to restore the balance of phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen and micronutrients available to the next crop’s root system by at least one or two years. We quickly realised that this was our own money being returned to circulation.

– Does the programme also cover your newly acquired land in the south?

– When I arrived in Odesa Region to inspect the fields, drawing on my experience with farming technologies in our home region of Volyn, I was almost shocked by what I saw. The land had been managed using practices that were supposed to be close to no-till, but the fields were severely neglected, especially during the last two years of the war. In reality, it was no longer no-till.

Of course, we intend to bring these areas back to a proper standard in less than the three years traditionally considered necessary. The fields already look different. We use shallow tillage with an interesting small-diameter roller that chops the stubble and mixes it with the soil to create a 2–3 cm mulch layer. We sow with a John Deere 1890 seeding system that we have upgraded with row cleaners. This year, we achieved 100% rapeseed emergence across 2,100 hectares in the south.

We will gradually integrate this project into all our programmes. We were among the first to adopt Cropio, a satellite crop-monitoring system, back in 2017. After seven years, we have accumulated a substantial farm data set.

We have also connected our southern fields to Cropio, the Climate FieldView digital farming platform and the John Deere Operations Center. This autumn, we carried out the entire sowing campaign in Odesa and Mykolaiv regions using elements of precision farming.

In just one year, the farm has moved from being unprofitable and neglected to having digitised fields and implementing precision farming practices. We are now preparing to apply UAN. It had never been used there before, and the farm lacked the necessary infrastructure. We have purchased the required equipment, prepared application sites and are modifying our sprayers. From 10 to 15 December, two sprayers will apply UAN across 4,200 hectares using variable-rate application maps. These are tangible steps forward for us.

Soil Analysis: The Foundation of Precision Farming

– What was the starting point on your journey towards precision farming? Where did you first see its benefits?

– I had always wondered why we applied the same rate of 150 kg/ha of NPK fertiliser across an entire field when yields varied from one area to another. More importantly, what could we do to correct the situation?

At one conference, I heard a speaker say that the greater the variability in a field’s soils, the faster investment in precision farming pays off. That was the trigger for me. I decided to invest in precision farming.

The first thing I did was take an online agricultural training course with Kultivarii. I also had the opportunity to communicate directly with the programme’s experts, which helped me develop a plan for transitioning to precision farming. Our goal in the first few years was to reduce costs by 10% and increase yields by 10%. That became a guiding principle for our work.

The next practical step was soil analysis through AgriLab, using Ward Laboratories, Inc. in the United States. Because our soils are highly variable, we ordered sampling based on productivity zones rather than a regular 10-hectare grid.

Soil analysis divides fields into zones according to their levels of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, organic matter and other elements. It reveals the factors limiting productivity. Some areas had high soil acidity, while others, surprisingly, were alkaline. Once we saw the full picture, we completely abandoned compound NPK fertilisers.

– Were you applying fertiliser you didn’t need?

– In some areas, our soils required high rates of potassium, while phosphorus was already sufficient. Yet an NPK granule did not even come close to addressing the potassium deficiency, while supplying additional phosphorus that was not needed. There were other combinations of this kind as well.

We were paying extra for the process of combining nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium into a single granule, which is far from inexpensive. We also paid for transport and the work involved in placing the fertiliser in the root zone, even when the soil did not need it. That is what soil analysis revealed.

Now, we apply potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen according to the specific needs of each nutrient-supply and productivity zone. Every element receives the attention it requires.

After four years, we can already see the results. The differences between our soil zones have begun to even out as far as possible. We repeated our soil analysis in 2024. AgriLab had received a USAID AGRO grant to support soil testing, and we were among the first to participate in the programme.

The repeat analysis confirmed increases in several indicators, including organic matter and reserves of potassium and magnesium, as well as an increase in cation exchange capacity. We are also nearing completion of soil testing and the development of digital nutrient maps for 5,000 hectares in the SVITFARM project in the south.

We are now moving towards the next step: realising the genetic potential of crop hybrids. People talk about it a lot, but relatively few put it into practice. The first requirement is to establish the right agronomic foundation. This is a task that takes three to five years. We have completed it in Volyn.

– What about micronutrients? Are they part of this process?

– Micronutrient deficiencies are much easier to address once you have established and balanced the overall agronomic foundation. When the macronutrients provide a solid base, it becomes easier to manage micronutrients, and they deliver a better return.

You can apply micronutrients with liquid fertilisers near the seed during sowing and later during the growing season using a sprayer. Liebig’s law of the minimum still applies: no single nutrient should disrupt the overall balance and critically affect plant growth.

Precision farming helps us balance and improve this system. In other words, you identify the bottleneck and use the right equipment and modern fertilisers to address it.

Nutrient management is one of the most important components of precision farming. The next is variable-rate seeding. This approach also follows from soil variability: one zone may support a corn yield of 3 t/ha, another 8–10 t/ha, and a third 10–15 t/ha.

Previously, we sowed the entire field at the same rate of 72,000 corn seeds per hectare. In sandy areas, even after removing competitive weeds, the low nutrient availability meant that plants competed with each other. Yields did not exceed 3 t/ha.

We cannot change the nature of that sandy soil in a short period; it took millions of years to form. So we reduced the seeding rate there from 72,000 to 45,000 seeds per hectare. Now, corn yields can reach 7 t/ha.

In highly productive areas, we can increase the seeding rate to as much as 76,000 seeds per hectare and apply higher nitrogen rates. There, yields can rise from 8–10 t/ha to 12–15 t/ha.

By distributing seeds and nutrients across the field at variable rates, we have increased average yields while reducing costs. That is precision farming in practice. In this system, the fertiliser spreader, seeder and sprayer work together as a single unit.

Precision farming encompasses as many as 20 components: soil analysis, weather-station data, RTK signals, autosteer systems, section control, variable-rate seeding and yield maps. It also includes one activity that some farmers would rather avoid, even though it is essential: conducting on-farm trials and establishing experimental plots.

My early experience working at experimental plots at the Myronivka Institute of Wheat has probably been very useful in this respect.

Plant breeders examine hundreds of thousands of samples and select just a few lines with desirable characteristics. They study these lines in greater detail, and after three to five years, a new variety may emerge for commercial production.

The same principle applies on a 2,000-hectare farm. You establish trials to test nutrient management, seeding density, varieties and hybrids. You evaluate the results and replicate the best solutions in commercial fields the following year. Each year, you refine your approach and identify the most effective ways to implement technology under your own soil and weather conditions.

This spring, we established nitrogen nutrition trials in Volyn with Kernel’s laboratory, following its protocols. In autumn, before harvest, we collected plant stem samples and sent them to the laboratory for comprehensive analysis. We will soon know how our nitrogen strategy performed this year under different application rates, combinations and conditions.

I am proud of our cooperation with Kernel. We also plan to conduct similar trials with potassium and phosphorus for the 2025 harvest. It is exciting work!

Two Different Worlds of Farming

– What do you grow across the two parts of your business?

– In Volyn, we grow five crops: winter wheat and winter rapeseed, for which we know the production technology well and have selected suitable varieties and hybrids, plus sunflower, corn and soybeans, which we sow in spring.

All our crops are commodities traded on the market. We do not experiment with niche crops; that is not our strategy. At one point, I grew six or eight different crops, and I know how much that spreads your attention and resources. With all due respect to those who specialise in niche crops, it is difficult to maintain the same level of focus across all of them. Some crops perform well, others poorly, and niche-crop prices tend to surge only once every three years.

Sunflower is one of the crops we are expanding in Volyn, and it works well for us. We establish the right conditions by applying bacteria and fertilisers and carrying out appropriate tillage. Our yields are consistently above 3 t/ha. This year, one field averaged 4 t/ha, setting a new record for us. In the south, however, we plan to move away from sunflower.

– Your land is located in different climatic zones. Does that make farming more complicated?

– Farming in the south has given me a unique new experience. At first, I was eager to apply some of the technologies we use in Volyn. The temptation was strong. But I quickly realised that western and southern Ukraine are like two different planets when it comes to crop production technology.

In Volyn, annual precipitation is around 600–700 mm, although temperatures reached +42°C this summer. In the south, precipitation is only 200–250 mm. In Krynychuvate, Mykolaiv Region, it is slightly higher—around 300–350 mm and sometimes up to 400 mm.

The land is also close to a port, where air attacks occur daily and the ground itself seems to vibrate. It is an entirely different working environment.

Andrii Pashkovskyi, an experienced local specialist, is responsible for agronomy there. Growing sunflower in that region is a one-year strategy. If you do everything on time, apply UAN and provide balanced nutrition, including amino acids to help the crop withstand the most critical growth stages and May droughts with less stress, you may achieve 2–2.5 t/ha.

But there is one catch: after sunflower, you will not achieve high yields the following year or even for the next two years, regardless of what you sow.

If you want to farm profitably over the long term, you need a strategy that spans several years. Our crop strategy for the south is therefore based on winter rapeseed and winter wheat in roughly equal proportions—around 50% each, perhaps 45% each—with winter peas accounting for the remaining 10%.

Until recently, farmers used to joke among themselves about anyone sowing winter peas. This year, I sowed them for the first time, on 10–15 November, using the Balltrap variety. The crop will resume growth in February and be harvested in June. After that, we can mulch the field and grow rapeseed.

Peas are an excellent preceding crop for both wheat and rapeseed. I also saw flax grown for seed in the region. It is a short crop oriented towards export markets, but I have not yet decided to try it.

Our planned crop areas in the south are 2,000 hectares of winter wheat, 2,100 hectares of winter rapeseed, 230 hectares of winter peas and 670 hectares of sunflower. Previously, sunflower occupied 2,000–2,500 hectares there.

We will keep those 670 hectares of sunflower for one more season because of certain considerations. Sunflower is also attractive because the region focuses on high-oleic hybrids. This year, the premium was around UAH 500–700 per tonne. However, if all goes well, we will eliminate sunflower from our southern crop rotation entirely next year.

Finance Is Not the Main Thing—Management Is

– If you ranked the main challenges farmers face—machinery, technology, knowledge, management and finance—in order of importance, what would come first?

– I would put management and knowledge first, because they are inseparable. Knowledge does not work without people. Together, they are at the top of the list.

When you understand how to develop a technological plan and production system, and you have the necessary experience, you can always hire machinery when you need it. That is no longer a major problem. Ukraine has a large fleet of equipment available for hire.

Finance may be different for other businesses, but we maintain transparent tax reporting, accounting and financial discipline. We do not use off-the-books schemes, so accessing government financing under the 5–7–9% programme has not been a problem. For two years, we received government loans at 0% interest, while inflation was 12%. The interest rate on my working-capital loans was 12% annually. Can you imagine that? Later, it fell to 3%, and now it is 12–13% per year.

– What assets do you use as collateral?

– We were among the pioneers in using agricultural receipts with OTP Bank. We studied the instrument as soon as it became available. At one conference on business security, lawyers explained how farmers could protect themselves from hostile takeovers. Agricultural receipts were the first measure they mentioned. I immediately thought, “Wow! That is exactly what we need!”

I collected all the cadastral numbers available in our State Register of Property Rights and formally pledged them to OTP Bank as collateral for a loan. I have not had a single hostile takeover attempt since then. Anyone targeting my land would have to deal with OTP Bank, which is an entirely different level of opposition. For me, this is a form of business protection. We also use machinery and real estate as collateral.

Under these conditions, I have not lacked offers of bank financing over the past five years. We have been a profitable company with a proven track record, transparent operations and paid taxes.

It becomes clear why management is often called an art. For Hadzovskyi, it is not simply a collection of technologies and methods, but a deeper framework of philosophy, principles, ideas and rules for living and working. Perhaps one day we will hold a textbook on agricultural management written by Hennadii himself, and students and colleagues will study and follow his approach.

The Field Is the Main Focus

– As both owner and operations director, which responsibilities are most important to you? Where do you devote most of your time?

– I believe our main investment is the field—in other words, agronomy. You need to focus most on what creates the foundation for your profit.

You can hire a trader or an analyst who spends eight hours a day watching five monitors full of constantly changing market prices. One day, the analyst may tell you: “You have three days to lock in your soybean price. Here are three companies to contact; they urgently need to fill their ships.” You act on that information, and the analyst’s work pays for itself.

Management is another essential function. Kyiv-Mohyla Business School taught me to divide my team into groups according to their capabilities: those who can achieve extraordinary results and those who cannot. I assign responsibilities accordingly. Some tasks require exceptional effort; others are routine, and you cannot expect every employee to perform miracles. But routine work is also essential to any production business.

With people capable of extraordinary achievements, you move forward and provide additional incentives for results. At Kosiuk’s company, employee motivation was planned down to the smallest detail. I apply the same approach to people who can deliver exceptional results.

You build a team, they trust you, and you trust them. With that kind of team spirit, you can achieve outstanding results.

Early in our development, Bayer gave us a valuable opportunity through a grant to study how to improve farm efficiency. A team of specialists—including soil scientists, finance professionals and HR experts—visited the farm, conducted a comprehensive audit and produced a substantial book of recommendations.

That book became my reference guide for several years. I have implemented many of its recommendations, and I am still working through some of them today.

– Are you a strict manager? Have you dismissed many employees over the years?

– When we were turning the bankrupt farm into a profitable business, around 30% of the staff changed for various reasons. Our chief agronomist eventually chose a different career path. Later, I met an agronomist who shared my outlook, Stanislav Polozhevets. We understand each other very well and work side by side to improve precision farming and on-farm research.

In general, I have a clear principle of delegation. At the beginning, I put in writing what I expect from a specialist and then observe their work for a while. If they understand what I need and deliver, I continue delegating responsibilities to them. If I see them avoiding responsibility from the outset, I let them go immediately.

In my relatively short life, I have dismissed around 500 people. You could say I have a strict management style.

– What is your strategy for selling grain?

– There is a basic rule of grain marketing: you should contract or lock in the price for 30% of your crop before harvest, at the prevailing price.

For example, if harvesting starts on 15 July, you should start looking for buyers from 1 July, or even 15 June. Focus first on established international traders such as Louis Dreyfus, Kernel, Cargill, ADM and others.

Their contracts may run to ten pages and contain plenty of fine print, but they honour their commitments. During harvest, you should also try to fulfil the contracts you have already signed. Avoid selling additional grain at that time, because prices are usually at their lowest during harvest.

About a month after the official end of harvest, start looking for buyers for another 30% of your crop. Information is widely available today, and farmers can monitor vessel line-ups. If Dreyfus has more vessels to load, contact that office and negotiate. If Cargill has no available line-up because its expected vessels are already covered with grain, you should not expect a competitive offer from Cargill. You need to monitor what is happening at the ports.

You also need to follow market analysis. Barva Invest provides a great deal of information, as do other organisations. I like the analysis from the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, which arrives every Tuesday.

The next 30% of the crop should be sold after harvest, typically in December and January. Most traders traditionally try to buy as much as possible before 20 December because the Christmas holidays in Europe run from around 22 December to 10 January. So, keep an eye on which traders still have vessels to load before 20 December.

The remaining 10% should be sold between January and March. If you follow a strategy along these lines, you spread your price risk across different baskets. You will never capture the absolute peak price, and there is no point trying. Commodity prices are influenced by global macroeconomic factors, including oil prices, and our ability to influence those factors is minimal.

However, if you spread your sales across four tranches—30%, 30%, 30% and 10%—you have a better chance of achieving an average price closer to the higher end of the market than if you sold everything on a single day.

– You conduct a great deal of field research and practically carry out scientific work. Have you considered pursuing an academic degree?

– I have. I have already defended my dissertation in the Department of Crop Production at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. Under the old classification, I would be a Candidate of Agricultural Sciences; under the new system, I hold a PhD in Agronomy, Hennadii Hadzovskyi says with a smile.

– A PhD? Then let’s talk about philosophy. What philosophical ideas can be applied to agronomy?

– There is a spiritual law of exchange. Harmony in a person’s life emerges only when two flows—giving and receiving—are balanced. To receive energy, you must give energy. Only then can energy circulate. You receive what you give to the world: kindness in return for kindness, care in return for care, and tears and complaints in response to anger and irritation.

At the same time, this is simply an inner need of mine. I speak at conferences, advise others, continue learning from people with experience and give talks to students. I give back.

– What do you dream of?

– Artificial intelligence in agriculture. I am passionate about it. As a business owner, I am exploring all the possibilities of AI and how to connect it to our accumulated database.

I activated a premium ChatGPT account and started uploading Excel files, asking the system how best to analyse them. I am already getting some initial results and beginning to model, test and analyse different scenarios.

It is similar to the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule, according to which 20% of activities generate 80% of results. Artificial intelligence can help us process large databases more efficiently and identify that critical 20%.

– What advice would you give farmers?

– Before doing anything, study your land and carry out soil analysis. This is one of the basic principles of crop production.

I once spent UAH 1.5 million on the first round of soil analysis across my entire land bank. The investment paid for itself in just one and a half growing seasons, thanks to changing fertiliser types and intelligently reallocating them among different zones. This is one of the most straightforward steps a farmer can take.

– As a PhD, do you have any advice to help people stay optimistic?

– Despite all the hardships our country has faced, keep moving stubbornly towards your goals. Stop watching television and digging through negative social media content. It freezes your thinking and leads to depression.

You may come up against your own glass ceiling. Break through it! Remember your genetic heritage and your sense of humour. When things get really difficult, go out into the field and feel its energy. It will recharge your batteries and restore your zest for life!