The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted in favor of Law No. 7178 on ensuring food security under martial law. This is reported on the official Telegram channel of the Verkhovna Rada..
“Now the state’s food security is becoming critical. This requires the urgent use of all available agricultural land for the sowing campaign. To do this, we simplify the acquisition of rights of use for agricultural land plots under martial law. Thanks to this law, 20 thousand hectares of communal land that were prepared for lease at land auctions will be transferred for agricultural production. Prerequisites will also be created for conducting agricultural production for 300-400 thousand tons. ha of state-owned land that is now in permanent use by state-owned enterprises of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, educational institutions, etc. This will make it possible to get about 1.4 million tons of grain harvest on these lands,” the report says.
Let’s take a closer look at the changes to the draft law:
1. Lease land relations are automatically extended for one year without entering information in the relevant registers.
2. District military administrations can lease state and municipal agricultural land plots for up to one year for agricultural production. The rent may not exceed 8% of the standard monetary valuation of land plots. To determine the amount of rent, the average standard monetary estimate of a unit of arable land area in the region will be applied.
3. For land plots transferred by District military administrations, strict restrictions are imposed on their intended use, in particular, on changing the composition of land, subletting land plots, construction, changing the purpose of the land plot, and so on.
4. Lease agreements for such land are concluded only for one year in electronic form without bidding. They will not be renewed or concluded for a new term.
5. The right to lease land leased by the military administration will not be subject to state registration.
6. The transfer of agricultural land that is in permanent use by state and municipal enterprises, institutions, organizations, and on which there are no crops, is carried out with the written consent of the head of the relevant state, municipal Enterprise, Institution, Organization, and the right of permanent use of land plots is not terminated.
7. Incomplete land auctions for the acquisition of the right to lease land plots of state and municipal ownership are canceled. It is forbidden to announce new ones.
8. Users of agricultural land are granted the right to transfer their land use rights to other agricultural producers who are provided with the necessary material, technical, financial and labor resources for one year. District military administrations are given the authority to register land use transfer agreements by maintaining appropriate registration books.
In order to avoid abuse during the war period, it is prohibited to:
– free transfer of state-owned and communal land to private ownership;
– formation of land plots (except for those leased by military administrations);
– land auctions for lease rights, emphyteusis, superficies for state and municipal agricultural land plots. At the same time, it is worth noting that land plots of state and municipal ownership for agricultural purposes, lease rights, emphyteusis in respect of which were put up for land auction, but the winner of which is not determined, are subject to lease by military administrations.