In March, the demining units of governmental and non-governmental operators inspected more than 26,500 hectares of agricultural land and returned almost 23,500 hectares to economic use. Since the beginning of the year, 80,300 hectares of land have been inspected, of which about 74,000 hectares have been returned to use. This was reported by Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine, with reference to the data of the regional military administrations.

“In March, our deminers returned almost 23,500 hectares of land to farmers. In total, since the beginning of the year, about 74,000 hectares have been returned to use. This is, so to speak, a ‘plus’ of 350,000 tonnes of wheat that farmers will harvest from the fields cleared of mines and explosives this year. It is important that as of the end of March, 80% of the returned areas were already being actively used for their intended purpose,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

According to the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, the Government is comprehensively addressing the task of accelerating the clearance of mines from the territory of Ukraine.

“We are working in all the identified areas. In March, we adopted a procedure for compensating farmers who will order humanitarian land demining services. This is an important step towards launching the humanitarian demining market. We have signed an agreement with Palantir to use advanced big data analytics and artificial intelligence to help us organise survey and demining work more efficiently. We are actively working on the implementation of domestic developments and strengthening the capabilities of operators by purchasing Ukrainian machinery and equipment,” said Yuliia Svyrydenko.

According to the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, March saw an increase in the number of units engaged in humanitarian and operational demining, as well as the number of demining machines involved in the work.