Farmer's monologue. "It is a crime to launch a land market for foreigners during wartime"

On January 1, amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine entered into force, according to which legal entities received the right to purchase arable land, and the maximum area of land that can be sold in the same hands increased a hundredfold – from 100 to 10 thousand hectares.

The peasants demand to suspend the law on the sale of agricultural land for the duration of the war, otherwise the arable land will end up in the hands of large agricultural holdings and transnational companies. And small and medium-sized farming, which the state deprived of all support, will cease to exist. "It is a crime to launch a land market in wartime conditions. The defenders of Ukraine in the trenches now have no time to think about the problems of the land market. It is extremely difficult for small and medium-sized farmers to get cheap loans. However, it is they and rural households who feed Ukraine in times of full-scale war."

This is the opinion of the head of the Volyn branch of the Association of Farmers and Private Landowners of Ukraine (AFPLU), Ruslan Khomych, who shared his vision of the problem. He cultivates 400 hectares of land, transports agricultural products and humanitarian aid to the "zero zone of hostilities", and it is there that he repairs military equipment.

The first round of conversation with Mr. Ruslan took place in his car, and later – over a cup of tea in his cozy home in the village with the memorable name – Krovatka. The conversation was long. Let's outline its main theses.

 

"I'm just incredibly happy when I see the result of my work"

— We repaired three batteries of the self-propelled 122 mm multiple rocket launchers called "Grad", that's 12 machines. The guys call a few days later: "Mykolayovych, we're reporting: they were shelling us, but they didn’t know that we had all the "Grad" multiple launch rocket launchers on the move. We went to the highway, blocked it, and started firing from our repaired multiple rocket launchers "Grad", and for three days it was so quiet that the birds began to sing, and the enemies were healing their wounds and collecting the corpses of their soldiers." I am simply incredibly happy when I see the result of my work, says Ruslan Mykolayovych.

He calls himself Iron Man. He and his employees restore old agricultural machinery from the scrap metal stage, as well as military machinery, directly on the front line. In addition, he also manages to cope well with his agriculture. His pride as a good owner is a flock of geese. Pedigree birds are not grown for meat – female geese carry eggs fertilized by male geese, which are a commodity and from which, under the conditions of an incubator, the same purebred chicks hatch. Ruslan also sows rapeseed, cereals, onions, carrots, and grows potatoes. But now his main work is volunteering. A volunteer in such difficult times is vitally important for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The front needs everything: from potatoes to drones and thermal imagers.

...Next – about the land, the functions of the state and the sense of time of a person engaged in agriculture.

 

"We are told how everyone will live well in the future. It's just that they don't specify who exactly will live well"

"Our state, how to say it more politely, is in its infancy. I know what the main functions of the state should be. I read the Constitution of Ukraine carefully. And our state does not fulfill its main tasks, – says the farmer. — "Land reform", if we are talking about Law No. 552-IX on the sale of agricultural land, which the President of Ukraine Zelenskyy signed on April 28, 2020, is not a reform. Let me remind you that according to the law, natural persons were allowed to buy up to 100 hectares of land in the same hands, and from January 1, 2024, legal entities whose founders are Ukrainians also received this opportunity. And now they can buy up to 10 thousand hectares. Well, this is not a reform, it is the theft of land from the Ukrainian people by political and economic methods. Every reform should be aimed at improving the living conditions of ordinary people. The welfare of ordinary Ukrainians should be in the center of attention. And officials only tell the people of Ukraine how everything will be wonderful in the future, how good life will be. They just don't specify who exactly will live well..."

 

The assurance that the land is available only to Ukrainian beneficiaries is simply nonsense

According to Mr. Ruslan, the rapid taking of land from those who work on it began with the coming to power of the current president's team. "The authorities have announced that they want to become an open part of the civilized world, that land should be sold," my interlocutor notes. "At the same time, Article 13 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which states that land is "an object of property rights of the Ukrainian people", and not of any one person or parliamentary faction, was nullified."

"The thing is that being a civilized country and claiming to be a civilized country are very different things," says the farmer. — Before selling the last strategic resource of the state - and the land cannot be restored! — It is necessary to prepare all the conditions so that the process brings maximum benefit, first of all, to Ukraine and its people. And here there are two important points.

First, the current government lacks understanding of the role of small and medium-sized rural producers for the development and strengthening of the middle class in the countryside. Zelenskyy's predecessors also planned to open the market to foreign buyers, but they had an understanding that first they needed to strengthen their own. And not only big ones like Bakhmatiuk and Kosiuk, who always received multi-billion state loans, but also small family farms. It is necessary to stimulate their growth and development.

Secondly, we do not have an effective law enforcement and judicial system that would protect the peasants from land confiscation schemes."

According to Mr. Ruslan, the stories that the formation of the land market is an extremely good thing, without a real state strategy for peasants and communities (and most of the united territorial communities are rural) are delusional. "I compared the rhetoric of our government with what I saw in Lithuania," he says. — They prepared for land reform there for a long time, but they still made mistakes. My interlocutors warned: "It is impossible to allow even one hectare of your land to fall to legal entities with private property rights. The first hectare sold to a legal entity will be the beginning of the end of Ukrainian statehood." 

"You will not find the ultimate beneficiary of a legal entity, as it can be changed a hundred times overnight," the farmer is confident. — In addition, according to the law, any citizen of Ukraine has the right to create an unlimited number of legal entities. And if some dishonest Ukrainian receives a large amount of foreign money, he will be able to hire a hundred lawyers, create a thousand legal entities and buy 10,000 hectares of arable land for each one. Therefore, the assurance that the land is available only to Ukrainian beneficiaries is, to put it mildly, false."

 

The state purposefully makes a difference between its own and foreign buyers

According to the farmer, it is not only about relations between local small producers and Ukrainian agricultural holdings, which are rapidly developing and supported by the state. "It's not surprising that there are representatives of large agricultural businesses in the specialized ministry, who simply ignore the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises," says Ruslan Khomych. — "It is also about the relationship between farmers and foreign businessmen-tenants, who have been working on Ukrainian land for a long time, and now they are getting the tools for growth that local farmers do not have."

Ruslan Mykolayovych gave a vivid example of how in his own community three citizens of the Netherlands dispose of many hundreds of hectares of Ukrainian land. Their wives are Ukrainian, and the cheap money comes from European banks. "A Ukrainian farmer cannot reach this money," says the farmer. — It is worth noting that our state canceled all support programs immediately after the adoption of the law on the sale of land. It is impossible to reach the minister and his deputies. At the same time, our foreign competitors receive not only loans from their banks, but also from the first of January an official opportunity to increase their land bank."

The terms of the game for their own and others are unfair from the beginning. The state purposefully provokes a conflict between our foreign neighbours and our Ukrainian farmers, who could normally coexist. "And you call this a civilized opening of the land market? – asks Khomych. — And I am not talking about the large mechanized multinational companies that will enter Ukraine and displace from the village all those who will lose their jobs on the land. However, it is they – our peasants – who receive summonses to war and go to fight for their country and for the land actually owned by a foreigner who will never receive a summons. Is it fair?".

 

Why the unprotected farmer stopped trusting the state

Today, the Ukrainian state does not have reliable tools to protect peasants against schemes and abuses at the state level. And this is not news, of course. It was always like that. Law enforcement and judicial systems do not work.

"Before the launch of the land market, the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre (State Geocadaster) was the tool for obtaining land," the farmer continues his story. — I would like to remind you that before the adoption in April 2021 of the Law "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding the Improvement of the System of Management and Deregulation in the Field of Land Relations" No. 1423-IX, the territorial bodies of the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre (State Geocadaster) were the administrators of lands outside settlements. It was in the period from 2018 (after the land inventory) to April 2021 that the first stage of land acquisition was launched. A very dirty and cynical stage.

At that time, representatives of a consulting firm approached me personally and offered to buy land in the Volyn region. I answered: "Guys, but the land is not for sale!". They answered me: "Everything is in accordance with the current legislation. We will send you a map of the fields on Viber – choose and prepare the required amount of money." It was possible to buy 100, 200 hectares. Up to 400 hectares were bought. The price of such a purchase is a regulatory monetary estimate. We turned to law enforcement agencies, where we received a standard answer: "All actions are within the framework of current legislation."

According to Mr. Ruslan, all this happened during the creation of amalgamated territorial communities, which were supposed to get the right to dispose of lands outside the settlements. However, quite often it turned out that these lands already have an owner.

"This is how the public pasture in our village council was stolen," Ruslan declares. — And it was done like this: they came to the dormitory of some educational institution, offered students UAH 700 for a general mandate to manage a plot of land for running a personal peasant farm, they became the owners of two hectares for running a personal farm, and then issued general powers of attorney for real buyers. Now it is very easy to find these "land owners" and ask: "Man, in which region do you have a plot of land?". I am convinced that 99 percent of them will not be able to answer this question.

However, according to Ruslan Khomych, the organizers of the nationwide scam miscalculated. New owners of land plots had to create a personal farm: grow something on it, graze cows, etc. This did not happen. In addition, they violated the norms of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), adopted in 2018.

"Our country has not ratified the declaration," admitted our interlocutor, "but there is no need to mention this difficult moment. In addition, it is not difficult to prove that the law of Ukraine on private farms has been violated – they (land swindlers and bureaucratic clans) deprived ordinary peasants of their rights to land, which had already been sold to interested parties in consolidated massifs. And the amalgamated territorial communities, under whose control the agricultural lands were supposed to pass, were deprived of income from land leases, due to which they were supposed to grow rich and flourish. In our community, we were forced to close medical and midwifery centers and schools because there is no money to simply maintain them. Not to mention their further prosperity and wealth. You can't take land away from the people of Ukraine because they will definitely come to get it back!". 

"The information I shared cannot cover the scale of the disaster that is looming over Ukraine in connection with the launch of the so-called second stage of land reform. These are the interests of the Russian aggressor, and the schemes of the current government, and the seizure of land by political and economic methods, and the complete absence of a state policy in relation to land, — emphasized the interlocutor of ZN.UA. — Even taking into account the strategy for the sale of land, which was planned even by the previous government, it is worth noting that the farmers were not allowed to become strong enough. And in the conditions of war, they are simply destroyed as a class. But most of our communities are rural. And many things in the country depend on how they will develop, whether they will have jobs, etc. In my deep conviction, the president should immediately stop the sale of land for the period of hostilities and until the peasants return home from the trenches!"

...Before putting an end, a small remark: the real (not black, not white, but "gray") price of a hectare of lean land in Polissia which is located in Volyn, according to Ruslan Khomych, is from 1,000 to 1,500 dollars. If you multiply by 10,000 hectares, which an individual or legal entity now has the right to buy, then they will have to be taken out of your pocket for 15 million US dollars (black soil is much more expensive). Even wealthy farmers don't have that kind of money. Agricultural holdings have them, as well as those who have access to cheap loans from foreign banks. Actually, this is the answer to the question of who and against whom the amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine, which came into force on January 1, 2024, work for and against. 

Read this article in Ukrainian and russian.