In the conditions of war, small and medium-sized farmers declare their inability to fully participate in the agricultural land market. This issue was stated by Denys Marchuk, the UAC Deputy Chairman, during a briefing at Ukrinform.

According to him, the autumn sowing season showed that the area under crops has halved compared to the period before the full-scale invasion. Farmers are sowing at a loss and cannot expect to make a profit due to complicated logistics and rising prices for fuel, fertilizers, plant protection products, and seeds. At best, they can expect to get back some funds they spent.

"Over the course of two months, I held a series of meetings with farmers in 10 regions of Ukraine. They all say that they cannot afford to buy land due to lack of funds. Today, the limit for purchasing agricultural land is 100 hectares in one hand, and from the new year this figure will increase to 10,000 hectares. This creates a great concern that the new stage of the reform is aimed at speculators or very wealthy entrepreneurs," said Denys Marchuk, the UAC Deputy Chairman.

Therefore, the UAC registered a petition on the President's website calling on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to postpone the increase in the maximum area of agricultural land to one enterprise from 100 to 10,000 hectares until the war is over. In a week, the petition gained almost half of the required votes, despite the fact that Ukrainians could not vote for two days due to a technical failure on the website.

"Farmers across Ukraine are exhausted. Today, the government should focus on supporting farmers, otherwise we will face further reduction of land and bankruptcy of agricultural enterprises. Today, the 5-7-9 preferential lending program remains one of the most popular support programs among farmers. But farmers have already exhausted its capacity, and next year the loan limit should be raised to UAH 150 million, up from UAH 90 million this year. Otherwise, many farmers will not be able to finance the spring sowing campaign at a decent level," said Denys Marchuk.

Another effective mechanism for financing farmers in wartime could be the issuance of agricultural receipts for the right to use land plots. In this case, more banks could join this financial mechanism, and farmers would get another source of working capital. To do this, it is necessary to adopt the draft law No. 9352 "On creating conditions for raising funds for agricultural production," which has already been registered in the Verkhovna Rada.