One of the stages of the charity initiative “Bread for Peace” is being implemented in the region.
The Ukrainian-Italian project “Bread for the Peace of Ukraine”, which was launched in April 2022, is being implemented in the Lviv region. Cooperation provides assistance to farmers of the region, as well as IDPs currently living in Lviv. Thus, the Italian Social Cooperative Pausa Café joined several initiatives of the Lviv OVA and the Lviv Agrarian Chamber. Tetyana Hetman, director of LOVA’s agro-industrial development department, told more about this during a briefing at the “Ukraine” media center.
“The Italian social cooperative appealed to the Lviv Agrarian Chamber with an offer to help last year. Together, we managed to start three activities aimed at supporting our farmers and IDPs. First, we bought wheat grain, which we exported to Italy. There, on the basis of the cooperative, flour and bread were made from these raw materials, which were sold in Italian stores. 30 cents from each unit of sold products was reinvested in the purchase of seeds, which were distributed to 72 farms in Lviv Oblast in October. In total, they received more than 28 tons of seeds – this is the second activity that we managed to implement,” – emphasized Tetyana Hetman.
The third joint initiative was implemented recently. It is about the transfer of food packages to places where displaced people live. According to the head of the Lviv Agrarian Chamber, Igor Vuytsyk, 7 craft producers from the Lviv region joined the production of products to help shelters.
“Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the Lviv Agrarian Chamber tried to provide assistance to the farmers of the Lviv region. Therefore, we concluded an agreement with the Italian Social Cooperative – one of our ideas involves the transfer of food to shelters. The competition for the selection of manufacturers of these products was held openly. We prepared an announcement on the website of the Chamber of Agriculture, subsequently 19 farms submitted applications, of which 7 met the stated criteria. The products had to be certified, because both adults and children are in the shelters – this is a big responsibility.” – Ihor Vuytsyk noted.
Anna Rybiy-Slyunchenko, commercial director of one of the participating factories – “Shkvarka”, emphasized that in total they plan to organize 5 deliveries of their products to shelters. The first one has already taken place – it is 7.5 kg of product. Nabory received shelter at the “Disciples of Jesus Christ” Church in Lviv. According to Taras Stolyarchuk, deacon of the Church, during the year approximately 5,000 people were accepted there – most of them went abroad. Currently, more than half a hundred IDPs live in the shelter.