Ukraine's Cabinet approves bill to transfer 500,000 ha to farmers' ownership

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved and submitted to the Verkhovna Rada a bill on the transfer of 500,000 hectares of agricultural land to farmers' ownership.

"We will now endorse the draft law and ask the parliament to approve it. This will give an opportunity to transfer 500,000 hectares of land to 23,000 Ukrainian farmers working there while having no right to own it due to injustice," Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said while presenting the bill at a government meeting on Wednesday, April 4.

At the same time, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine said that in the 1990s, the Ukrainian farmers received agricultural land for permanent use, but without property rights, which significantly limited possibilities for doing business.

Read alsoBan on farmland sale in Ukraine hinders development – MHP CEOAs UNIAN reported, Groysman earlier stated that farmers should become owners of land in Ukraine, rather than large latifundist holdings and foreign companies.

According to the land reform proposed by the government, only Ukrainian citizens could be eligible to purchase land, in case the moratorium is canceled. However, the maximum plot size per citizen shall not exceed 200 hectares.

At the same time, the working group under the Ministry of Agrarian Policy allows the possibility of selling land plots to small farms, subject to a number of restrictions.

The moratorium on the purchase and sale of agricultural land in Ukraine has been in effect since 2001.