Successful delivery despite quarantine

2020 began with an atypically warm winter without snow and frost. The situation was increased by the lack of productive moisture in the soil. Thus, the growing season of winter and spring crops is going to be complicated. When it became clear that the COVID-19 pandemics have been reached Ukraine, our government took a number of preventive measures (quarantine, emergency situation) to reduce and stretch the peak of infection to preserve our health care system from stream of infected people.

During the time of quarantine our main activity was focused on the finish of corn seed production season (packing) and the supply of imported sugarbeet seeds, parent components etc. Fortunately, the movement of goods was not blocked and during the first two weeks of quarantine all our efforts were focused on safety of our staff and ensuring a smooth process of packing and supply of seeds.

Since March 13th we have set up a pandemic staff and on March 17th Vladimir Bukharin, Country Manager Sugarbeet, was appointed as a local pandemic coordinator.

Since March 16th our office in Kyiv shift to work remotely. We introduced additional preventive measures on seed plant as:

• control of staff temperature before shift,
• provision with individual protective means,
• block the access of external visitors to the seed plant office and territory,
• shift the administrative staff to work remotely.

Therefore, our seed plant works.

Also, all employees of KWS Ukraine report to their managers about their health status (self-esteem and body temperature) twice per week. We also recommended to our sales representative to limit customer visits. But anyway, they must drive to customers only by company car alone, provided with individual means of protection and meet customers outside (usually in the field as sowing campaign has already began).

We sincerely hope that all these measures will help. As both our employees and customer relationship are key values of KWS. |