In Ukraine, approximately 4 million hectares of agricultural land are being cultivated outside the legal framework, resulting in annual losses to the state budget of about 24 billion UAH. This was reported by Deputy Minister of Economy Denys Bashlyk. He emphasized that these losses do not account for potentially unpaid taxes, as well as income from the sale of agricultural products grown without official registration.
This is reported by Business • Media
Impact of the War and Land Control Issues
According to Denys Bashlyk, since the onset of the full-scale war initiated by Russia in 2022, land inspections in the country have effectively been suspended, further complicating the control over the use of land resources.
“In Ukraine, about 4 million hectares of land are cultivated outside the legal framework, causing the state losses of approximately 24 billion UAH annually, and this amount does not include potential unpaid taxes, as well as losses from the sale of products grown on these lands without official registration.”
The Ministry of Economy, together with the State Geocadastre, is currently working on implementing a secure restoration of the public cadastral map. The main goal is to ensure effective control over land use, considering a risk-oriented approach. The importance of digitizing land processes is also emphasized to enhance transparency and efficiency in land use management.
Land Inventory and Auction Results
Head of the State Geocadastre Dmytro Makarenko noted that since the beginning of the year, approximately 150 thousand hectares of land have already been inventoried out of the planned 198 thousand. According to him, the state land cadastre is currently filled to 76%. Agricultural lands have been fully inventoried, while primarily water and nature reserve lands, as well as parks and forests, remain unaccounted for.
Ukraine is actively transferring state agricultural lands to farmers through transparent auctions. Last week, 10 such auctions took place, with a total transaction amount reaching 52.3 million UAH. The average sublease cost was 30,700 UAH per hectare, and the winners are required to pay an additional 8.6 million UAH in VAT. The overall economic effect from the “Land Bank” auctions could reach approximately 51.7 million UAH.