Government adopts resolution to speed up return of agricultural land to use

The Government has passed a resolution to accelerate the return to use of agricultural land that is being cultivated despite the threat of explosive objects. This concerns changes to the Procedure for inspecting land plots whose owners or tenants are granted tax breaks due to the probable contamination of the land with explosive objects.

According to the adopted resolution, local authorities shall check whether the allegedly contaminated land is being used for its intended purpose. This information shall be forwarded to the Humanitarian Demining Center and the Mine Action Center. If the owner or tenant uses the land, their tax benefits shall be revoked.

Based on the information received from local authorities, the Mine Action Center or the Humanitarian Demining Center will decide whether to conduct a non-technical survey to refute or confirm the fact of contamination.

"According to preliminary data, 10,100 hectares of cultivated land are also areas that are likely or confirmed to be contaminated. It is important for us to conduct a non-technical survey of these areas as soon as possible, because this is primarily about the safety of the people who work here. In addition, this is an opportunity to quickly release a considerable amount of land if no threats are found.

Farmers who have certificates confirming the safety of the land they work on will be eligible for loans or find it easier to sell their harvest. Such steps will increase economic activity and the country's export potential," said Oleksii Sobolev, Minister of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture of Ukraine.

Previously, the actual use of potentially contaminated land, which is exempt from taxes, was not systematically verified.

According to data from GRIT, a digital platform for planning, prioritizing, and monitoring humanitarian demining, most of the land that is cultivated and at the same time has the status of suspected or confirmed contamination is located in Kharkiv, Kherson, and Mykolaiv regions.

Background information

As part of the state program to compensate for the cost of humanitarian demining, mine action operators have already cleared more than 13,700 hectares of agricultural land at the expense of the state. The cost of demining one hectare amounts to UAH 59,400.