Experts agree that continued existence of the moratorium on agricultural land sales is a key reason for underutilization of Ukraine’s agriculture potential, under-investment in the country’s rural areas, and mediocre growth. Yet, when it is time to decide on whether or not to lift it, there was always a consensus that the preconditions for doing so are not met and it was extended for another time. Will this time be different?

The concept of land reform has been presented for expert consideration. This concept was developed by experts at various levels and positions dealing with land issues in Ukraine. These include individual representatives from the SAGSUR group of advisers to the Prime Minister; from the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre; the World Bank Group; the USAID ARDS project; and the World Bank’s project “Capacity Development for Evidence-Based Land & Agricultural Policy Making”

Most of such disputes are on non-agricultural land. However, the opening of agricultural land market (and, consequently, an increase in the value of agricultural land) can affect both this ratio and the overall statistics of land cases in court.

It is probably impossible to completely exclude the influence of bureaucrats on land sales. What are the conditions for the success of this reform?

More than 25 years have passed since the first Parliament resolution “On land reform”. Despite this significant time period, the reform is far from being complete: sales market for agricultural land does not exist, significant share of rental market is informal and several categories of land do not have a clear legal status or are used in a non-transparent way