[Via... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Downwithcapitalism <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 9:16 PM Subject: [downwithcapitalism] FW: Agricultural privatization in Ukraine Kyiv Post. 4 May 2001. Ukraine's land reform begins to take root. Excerpts, with comments. Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko may be gone, but his dream of killing off the last collective farm in Ukraine may soon become reality. A landmark law on the abolition of collective farms, which was passed by President Leonid Kuchma in late 1999 and implemented by the Yushchenko government last year, is giving a boost to the country's small farmers and contributing to the revival of Ukraine's moribund agricultural sector, analysts [paid to promote the neoliberal agenda] say. Though it remains illegal to buy or sell agricultural land in Ukraine, the law has made it possible for former collective farm workers to begin tending their own land, or to rent their land to others. Ukraine, which boasts one-third of the world's total acreage of "black soil," the richest on Earth, has been slow to privatize its most precious commodity. Farmers first received land privatization certificates in 1995, but most never actually got any land. The certificates merely conferred the right to own land, without allotting specific plots. It wasn't until last year, when the government reorganized all state-owned collective farms into private entities, that former collective farmers finally got the right to actually own land plots [---the first step in selling them off to corporate financial monopolies]. The new law on collective farms gives farmers land deeds entitling them to about five hectares of land. More importantly, it specifies each farmer's land plot. In many cases, farmers have been given deeds for plots located right next to their home garden plots. Thus, some farmers have suddenly become the owners of small farms located right in their backyards. According to Agricultural Policy Ministry data, to date 22 percent of Ukraine's 33 million hectares of arable land has been distributed among the nation's farmers with the help of the new land deeds. Vasyl Fedyayev, an advisor for the Association of Landowners and Renters, said that the distribution of land and land deeds is expected to accelerate soon. The government recently selected U.S. firm Chemonics to handle the distribution of land deeds. Fedyayev reckons it will take two years to complete distribution of land nationwide. ... The nascent market for leased agricultural land has spawned new businesses and fueled lending to Ukrainian agricultural enterprises. Mykolayiv-based Nibulon is one company that is thriving off the liberalization of the agricultural land market. The Ukrainian, Hungarian and British joint venture, which has been farming at least 50,000 hectares of rented land at a time since 1996, tries to sign rental contracts as soon as farmers receive their government land deed, according to Deputy Director Oleh Starostenko. It has proven a successful strategy so far. The company rents land from 7,000 former collective farmers in the Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Luhansk and Vinnytsya oblasts. ... Ukrainian banks loaned Hr 1.1 billion ($200 million) to agricultural enterprises during the first three months of this year, more than during all of last year. Bankers say they are impressed by how quickly farmers are moving from a Soviet-style approach to borrowing to a more businesslike way of thinking. Not long ago, bankers say, farmers were asking for loans without knowing how - or if - they would repay them. Today, many farmers approach banks with business plans in hand. Most offer their future crops as collateral and banks have been increasingly willing to take the risks. Yet private farmers still can't sell the land that they own. And many [eager to seize and centralize Ukrainian agriculture] say that will continue to stifle the sector's development. The fact that farmers can't trade land means that they can't use it as collateral for agricultural loans [---an important step in losing their shirts]. SPAM TO FOLLOW Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
