Today, leading agrarian associations representing thousands of small and medium-sized agricultural producers from all over Ukraine gathered at the roundtable to discuss land reform, including maintaining the current limits on land sales during the war.

Despite being invited to participate in the event, representatives of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy did not attend the roundtable discussion. At such a critical time for the agricultural sector, they continue to ignore any open discussions.

"What I don't like the most is that there is a war in the country, and we are talking about a clearly unprofitable issue - the sale of land. I do not like the attitude of the authorities, who ignore us. For some reason, at the beginning of the war, when thousands of tons of wheat had to be transported to Kyiv, surrounded by the occupiers, and thousands of tons of food to Kharkiv and Mykolaiv, we were needed. And today, when we want to convey our position but we are not heard at all. Who are we? We, small and medium-sized businesses, represent 65% of the total agricultural business, which brings 20% of GDP to the country. Why are we here today? Frankly speaking, because we are afraid. We have not been given arguments; we have not been explained what will happen from January 1, 2024. I don't know what to say to the farmers who are in the trenches at the front line today and who will not be able to buy land. I don't know what to say to the farmers who are in the 40-kilometer frontline zone and can't even take out loans. Small and medium-sized agribusinesses have not been offered any financial instruments to buy land," said Andriy Dykun, Chairman of the Ukrainian Agri Council.

Farmers are not against the reform. The desire of small and medium-sized farmers to postpone the increase in land purchase limits from 2024 is explained by the critical financial condition of agricultural enterprises in 2023. Amid the war, they simply do not have the funds to buy land.

Without the same subsidized support as in the EU and given the catastrophic decline in the sector's profitability, domestic farmers are facing a crisis of shortage of working capital and consumables for the sowing campaign and subsequent field work, which will inevitably affect the harvest results of the next years and global food security.

"Farmers are refusing to buy machinery, even fertilizers - the latter is being used for defense. Farmers are doing their best to save the state. It seems that the land market is being promoted by the Cabinet of Ministers and the Verkhovna Rada for personal gain. All civilized Europe has a controlled land market. Every country has a regulator. America has a free land market, but only in desert states: Nevada, Texas. But in the "corn belt", where black soil is valuable and where America gets the largest harvest, there are great restrictions on land sales and the government regulates the market there. We have uncontrolled access to the land market," said Viktor Sheremeta, Deputy Chairman of the Association of Farmers and Private Landowners of Ukraine.

Anatoliy Gayvoronskyi, Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Congress of Farmers, sees a corruption component in the increase of land sale limits. "The basis of corruption is large companies, and the agricultural sector is well aware of this. In Europe, it is very rare to have a large farm. In Germany, for example, they support small and medium-sized businesses. And with the corruption baggage we have, 10,000 hectares each, we are unlikely to be accepted by the EU," he said.

Under the current conditions, the increase of the limit to 10,000 hectares in "one hand" is also considered unacceptable by military personnel who are currently serving in the Armed Forces or are participants in hostilities. According to a survey conducted in August 2023 among combatants, 61% are strongly opposed to increasing the limit. In their opinion, such legislative changes are inappropriate in times of war and lead to the destruction of small and medium-sized agribusinesses.

"The law on the land market cannot operate under martial law, when 2 million people are physically unable to participate in the market because they are in the ranks of the Armed Forces. It is shameful to sell the land that our soldiers are defending. When the soldiers come back, there will be a big demand for injustice from the state. They are a huge force. The war will not write off the fact that the state's assets are being sold. In addition, if we open the market to legal entities and sell large tracts of land of 10,000 hectares to "one hand", this will accelerate the collapse of small and medium-sized businesses by hundreds of times. Who is this reform for?" emphasized Gennadiy Novikov, Chairman of the Agrarian Union of Ukraine.

According to Maria Didukh, Head of the Ukrainian Agri Forum (UAF), which unites associations of small, medium and large agricultural businesses, the land issue has always been relevant, but the government has always found a compromise.

"The UAF was created as a platform for consolidated solutions. I can speak on behalf of the UAF when there is a compromise, but there is no such compromise among the associations today. Today there are discussions again. Large agribusiness is in favor of the land market, medium-sized agribusiness is against the limits, and small agribusiness is against the second stage at all. And this is during the war. Agrarian associations express what hurts farmers. The government needs to listen to the agricultural sector and work out a single solution that will suit everyone, just like in 2019, when the law was adopted," she said.

The Ukrainian Agri Council, the Agrarian Union of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Congress of Farmers, the Association of Farmers and Private Landowners of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Agrarian Forum are jointly appealing to President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy to unite agribusiness and find a compromise on the second stage of land reform, which will start on January 1, 2024 and introduce a one-handed sale of up to 10,000 hectares.

In order to maintain the balance and provide equal rights for all Ukrainian farmers without exception, the roundtable participants opposed raising the limit of the permissible amount of land owned by one owner from the current 100 to 10,000 hectares in “one hand” starting in 2024. At the same time, they propose to keep the limit of 100 hectares in “one hand” for both legal entities and individuals until the end of the war and for two more years after the victory.