The Staffing Challenge in the Food Industry Is Now Even More Acute Than in Primary Agriculture, Says Rybchynskyi

The shortage of qualified personnel in Ukraine affects not only agricultural production itself, but the entire agri-food sector, including processing and food manufacturing, where many processes still cannot be fully replaced by automation. This view was expressed by Rodion Rybchynskyi, Director of the Union Millers of Ukraine, during the press conference “International Partnership for the Development of Training in Ukraine’s Agricultural Sector”, held on March 31 at Interfax-Ukraine.

“The staffing problem in the food industry is now even more acute than in primary agriculture itself. In the field, unmanned combines and tractors can already be used, but no one has yet figured out how to produce bread, groats, pasta or other food products without people. That is why the quality of personnel and the quality of knowledge are the number one challenge,” he noted.

Rybchynskyi stressed that, in the context of European integration, food industry enterprises must do more than simply fill vacancies. They need to upgrade employees’ qualifications quickly and in line with new regulations, technological requirements and quality standards. For this reason, he said, educational platforms such as AgriAcademy should develop in parallel with formal education and provide specialists with practical knowledge that can be applied in day-to-day operations.

He also noted that the platform already offers a course on post-harvest grain handling and storage, while a course on grain processing for groat production is expected to be launched in the near future. According to the Director of the Union, the value of such programmes lies above all in building a strong professional foundation, without which neither technological upgrading nor innovation can be achieved.

Rybchynskyi also drew attention to the need for closer cooperation between business and профиль higher education institutions. In particular, he referred to the involvement of lecturers from Ukrainian universities in the development and delivery of training courses, as well as joint efforts to establish modern laboratory facilities. In his view, this kind of cooperation makes it possible to align specialist training much more closely with the actual needs of enterprises.