On July 17th, Ukrainian Agri Council and the political party “Servant of the People” signed a memorandum of cooperation in order to unite efforts for the development of agriculture and rural areas.

The parties expect that the result of implementation of reforms will be increasing of agricultural production, rural employment, tax revenues, foreign exchange earnings, increased investment in agriculture, protection of the rights of owners and tenants of land.

"Our memorandum sets out short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. I hope that over the next 4 years, we will be able to implement them for the benefit of Ukraine, our villages and the agricultural sector"- the Chairman of UAC Andrii Dykun said.

According to Oleksandr Kornienko, the Chairman of the political party “Servant of the People”, the signed memorandum established the common goals of UAC and the “Servant of the People” to carry out further reforms.

"Today UAC one of the largest agricultural associations in Ukraine, which unites small and medium-sized agribusiness. This is a memorandum on further reforms in agriculture and ensuring the development of rural areas. The political party “Servant of the People”, our faction in the Verkhovna Rada has made every effort to open a civilized land market and we continue to move towards filling the economy with the meanings, reforms and specific laws that will help us to develop the Ukrainian economy, the Ukrainian agricultural sector." - Alexander Kornienko mentioned.

The parties identified as priority steps to promote the development of agriculture: resumption of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy; intensification of work on opening new markets for domestic agricultural products; unbundling of lands of other state enterprises; ensuring transparent, competitive privatization of PJSC “State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine”; providing state support to agricultural producers who lost crops due to drought in Odessa and other southern regions of Ukraine, etc.

In order to achieve the set goals, the memorandum identifies draft laws that need to be adopted in the shortest possible time: a draft law on equalization of the tax burden per 1 ha; on the transfer of state-owned lands outside populated areas to communal ownership of village and city councils; bill on agricultural cooperation, etc.

In addition, the document defines the budget, tax and regulatory policy in the agricultural sector, outlines ways to overcome the logistics crisis, agreed to work towards stabilizing the price situation in the market of mineral fertilizers. Also, the parties agreed to work together to improve the existing structure of water resources management and land reclamation. A separate item highlights the development of education in rural areas.