Will We Continue to Subsidize Feudalism?

The bill provides for restructuring the agricultural arrears over a five-year period with initial payment to be made on January 1, 2000. Hr 13 billion in penalties and fines to the state budget, Pension Fund, and Social Security Fund would be also written off. Of course, such touching “support” for uncompetitive Ukrainian agricultural enterprises used to living on budget largesse will not go the private sector in the village, which according to official information produces 56% of everything that is threshed, bears fruit, gives milk, lays eggs, or produces meat. There is not such indulgence for the farmers’ movement which last year produced only 3% of the nation's total agricultural output. Paradoxically, the state supports not those who are capable of producing but the semi-feudal vestiges of the state and collective farm systems.