Astarta Holding PLC

be noted for the next season, and we show our acreage breakdown on slide number seven, is because of the export bottlenecks and the bulkiest export crop is corn, we made a decision to reduce acreage on the corn from 59 to 38,000 hectares. We increased our acreage for wheat and we increased our acreage for oilseed crops such as soybeans and sunflower seeds because these can be processed domestically and on the soybean side obviously we crush it at our own plant. There was a recent change in the market environment since the Ukrainian government introduced licensing for wheat exports. Previously, there was a ban. Now, we are allowed to apply for license and export both corn and wheat, the most important crop commodities in Ukraine. However, the export bottleneck means that overland roots capacity is only currently a quarter at what used to be through the seaports in Odessa, Mykolaiv and other smaller ports in Ukraine. Going to the sugar production site, Sugar sales volumes were lower because some of our industrial clients either stopped production or had to reduce it. For example, Coca-Cola plant in Kiev region was severely damaged in the first month of the war. However, we are now focusing on retail sales of our products. And here we can see significant demand because sugar is a commodity which can be kept in storage for a longer period of time. And because of the logistical problems to deliver certain food products across Ukraine, it is easier to transport and distribute for humanitarian purposes. So again, lower sales and lower margin, but quite decent volumes. If we are turning overall to the situation in the market, we can see that the new harvested area, sorry, planted area on the sugar beet is down by almost one fifth. This is probably reflective of the amount of people who unfortunately had to temporarily leave Ukraine. So the domestic demand could be lower while the situation continues, but of course, in these circumstances, the prices are still significantly raised. The domestic prices for sugar in Ukraine are higher than international ones, and that is favorable for our P&L. We faced a sugar export ban from Ukraine in March, but that was lifted by the Ukrainian government. And recently the EU announced its intention to remove all trade barriers and quotas for imports from Ukraine, including sugar. And we hope that this decision will come into force very soon and we will be able to increase our sales, including exports. On soybean side, we had to temporarily suspend operations of our crusher during the first several weeks of the war, but then we restarted productions when we found a way to ensure safety of our operations and of our personnel. And we can see quite good results on the margin side. The reason is because domestic demand for our soybean products is probably higher than before the war, because livestock producers in Ukraine lack sunflower meal supply from sunflower seeds crushers, which had to stop their operations. Therefore, there is a higher domestic demand for soybean meal, which is our core product in the soybean crushing site. Very briefly, on the cattle farming, prices, revenues and margin are doing quite nicely despite the situation. And this is because there is a big push by the Ukrainian government and all large-scale Ukrainian businesses to continue business and earn revenues and tax revenues for the Ukrainian state. Our industrial consumers of milk, such as Jagatin, Luzdorf, continue to produce dairy products for Ukraine. And our... The raw milk that is produced by our farms is in high demand and we can see that our profitability even looks better compared to the first quarter of last year. So, we would like to say that despite the current environment, we operate business as normal, but of course this is not true. We are doing most what we can in the current situation. And we hope for the resolution on the seaport side so that we can have certainty with our grain exports, which is something shared by the market in general and by the global community, which demands Ukrainian grain to be released into the global market to calm down the global inflation and food security concerns.

Uhm?

Something we always also show in all our communication with investors and analysts alike. We have a humanitarian project and because of our operations located across Ukraine, we are able to deliver humanitarian aid directly to the most affected areas by military hostilities. So if you have anyone who can become a partner, provide such assistance to Ukrainians, in kind or via financial means, please do contact us. We will never get tired of doing charity work on top of our day to day business operations. And with this, I would like to turn the floor to the Q&A. It would be helpful if you send us questions into the chat box, because we know that some lines can be quite noisy. I don't see any yet, but if... Yes, hello?