LAND TAKES REVENGE

Ukraine was at least eight years late in enacting a new law on agricultural land, believes Anatoly Yurchenko, head of the legal department of the State Land Resources Committee, one of the authors of the proposed Land Code of Ukraine.

In his own words, the new law must finally solve the key problem of land ownership (no restitution for former landowners is envisaged) and secure the legal procedural vehicles for land utilization and protection by the state. Landowners taking good care of their plots, reviving the soil and keeping it in good shape will be economically stimulated, he assures, referring to Article 206 of the Code.

There is, however, the other side of the ledger. “The bill is very special from the standpoint of the impact on the environment and it was not subjected to the normally compulsory examination by ecological experts. Not one of its authors is an acknowledged ecologist,” Volodymyr Dovbakh, chairman of the Rural Ecology Committee of the Green World Ukrainian Ecological Association, told the seminar, Ecological Safety of Land Reform. He is sure the new law must establish the ecological priority principle, as mistakes in the course of the land and ecological reform may turn it into another Chornobyl like disaster.

The inspection of the Ministry of Agro-industrial Complex’s ecological performance proves that there is an obvious threat to national security, he adds. According to the Verkhovna Rada environmental committee, “soil degradation, erosion, and technological pollution are progressing.” Water and wind erosion annually damages 13.9 million hectares of arable lands — or one-third of Ukraine’s land resources. This damage costs the budget over 9.1 billion hryvnias. Due to the absence of erosion protection on hilly soils and in the presence of desertification, fertile soil wash-off, slimy bodies of water millions of hryvnias are lost, along with people’s trust in the possibility of working the land any differently.

Apart from stereotypes of thinking, Mr. Dovbakh believes that the interests of chemical fertilizer producers are being lobbied in the bill. He believes the West is not interested in having Ukraine as a potential market contender (remembering this country’s past reputation as “Europe’s granary.”

Green World proposed formation of a volunteer committee to conduct expert examinations, made up of noted scientists, who, together with the Land Code authors, would determine the ecological sore spots and make appropriate corrections in the bill. But both opposing sides believe the first reading of the bill will be passed in the prior to parliament’s summer recess.