The sale of land should be postponed until the end of the war - the opinion of agrarians

The All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council believes that the sale of large tracts of land in Ukraine should be postponed until the end of the war. This statement was made by the Deputy Chairman of the VAR, Denys Marchuk.

According to him, the representatives of the Council appealed to the President and the Verkhovna Rada with a request to postpone the increase in land sale limits until the end of the war and two years after.

"We are not against land reform, it is necessary, people should have the right to buy and sell land, but not in such volumes - up to 10,000 hectares. Today there is a provision that allows the purchase of 100 hectares "in the same hands" - and this is enough in this difficult time for Ukraine. The second stage of the reform leads to separation, preferences are created for big business, which today has better access to financial resources," he noted.

Also, the Deputy Chairman of the VAR noted that Ukraine is currently in the process of European integration, and there is not a single country within the EU that would realize such large land massifs "in the same hands".

He also noted that, if we take into account the fertility of the soil, Ukrainian land is undervalued and the cost of a hectare starts from UAH 38,000.

"In the EU, land is much more expensive. But in conditions of impoverishment of commodity producers, when they do not receive decent prices for agricultural products, it is difficult for them to find funds for the purchase of land, which for them is a means of production," D. Marchuk said.

Regarding the position of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal with a proposal to comprehensively work out the possibility of postponing the increase of the maximum area of agricultural land "in the same hands" from 100 hectares to 10,000 hectares until the end of the war. This is stated in the president's response to the petition of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council, which has collected the necessary 25,000 signatures for its consideration by the head of state.

In his answer Volodymyr. Zelensky drew attention to the fact that the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine takes care of agrarian policy, so he directed his appeal to the head of the Government.

It should be noted that previously it was proposed to postpone the start of the second stage of the land reform, which provides for the granting of the right to legal entities to purchase agricultural land. The relevant draft law (reg. No. 9341) was registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on May 29 by a group of 12 people's deputies from the "Servant of the People" and "For the Future" factions

The authors of the legislative initiative propose to grant the specified permission no earlier than 2 years after the termination or cancellation of the martial law regime in Ukraine.

Currently, the Verkhovna Rada has registered a draft law on postponing the second stage of land reform for a year - until January 1, 2025. As People's Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported, instead, he plans to personally submit an alternative draft law with a proposal to increase the limit for the sale of land plots to legal entities to 100,000 hectares in a year.

We will remind you that the land market in Ukraine officially started on July 1, 2021. Until 2024, only natural persons - citizens of Ukraine can buy agricultural land with a limit of 100 hectares. The Law on the Land Market prohibits foreigners from buying land. From January 1, 2024, the second stage of the implementation of the land market should start in Ukraine, when legal entities registered in Ukraine will be able to buy land. It will be possible to purchase no more than 10,000 hectares of agricultural land.