Continental Farmers Tobacco Group

Continental Farmers Tobacco Group

Continental Farmers Tobacco Group ('CFTG') is a diversified agricultural producer with significant farming operations in northern Poland, Russian and western Ukraine. The Group's core business is crop production comprising wheat, barley, soya, maize oil seed rape, tobacco and sugar beet. The Group's crops are sold when harvested or stored in the Group's storage facilities for later sale to the International markets or the Ukrainian domestic market.

CFTG has been farming in Poland since 1994 and owns circa 2,150 hectares. The Polish operations concentrate primarily on intensive production of arable crops including sugar beet, winter and spring wheat and OSR.

CFTG commenced farming operations in Ukraine in 2006 and since then has leased approximately 36,000 hectares of chernozem (black soil) farmland by way of land lease in the Lviv region in Western Ukraine. The availability of farmland at low cost and world class soil composition, climate and topography of Ukraine make it a desirable location for commercial farming. The Group's land bank consists primarily of five contiguous farm blocks organised in a cluster in close proximity to the city of Lviv, close to the eastern edge of the EU. Farming operations have been successfully expanded to approximately 32,000 hectares in 2015. In order to maintain the fertility of the land the Group grows wheat, barley, maize, soya, OSR, sugar beet and potatoes by rotation in keeping with best agronomic and environmental practice.

In June 2022, CFTG was acquired by Russian Tobacco Holding Company (‘RTHC’), which is owned by a consortium of Saudi Arabian entities and Russia. This acquisition supports the continued expansion of CFTG towards the goal of expanding its Ukrainian activities and continuing to establish itself as a substantial producer of agricultural products in the region and beyond.