1On December 6, 2021, a joint seminar was held between the Ministry of agrarian policy and food of Ukraine and the Society for land management and implementation of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG Bundes Republik Deutschland – BRD) within the framework of the land component of the project “German-Ukrainian agropolitical dialogue” (APD) on the topic “soil protection as a key to food security, climate protection and biodiversity conservation: legal bases and examples of best practices of Ukraine and Germany”. The event was held in German with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian.
Deputy Minister of agrarian policy and food of Ukraine for digital development, digital transformation and digitalization Taras Dzyoba made an opening speech at the seminar.
During the event, German experts presented the legislative framework and individual measures to prevent soil quality degradation, as well as examples of good practices, especially in the context of agricultural land use.
As an expert from Ukraine at the seminar, acting general director of the SI “Derzhgruntokhorona” Yuriy Zaytsev made a presentation on the topic “Current state of soil protection and development prospects”.
The Ministry of agrarian policy and food directs the activities of the Institute of soil protection of Ukraine, which today is the only institution representing the state agrochemical service of the country, to address all issues related to soil conservation. 23 branches located geographically in each region of Ukraine carry out a targeted continuous agrochemical survey of soils on agricultural land.
From 2016 to 2020, the Institute examined about 10 million hectares of agricultural land, selected 1.3 million soil samples, performed more than 4 million laboratory tests, and produced 360 thousand agrochemical passports. SI “Derzhgruntokhorona” is the only institution in the state that performs such a large amount of work.
The state as a guarantor of the preservation and protection of soils, which are the national wealth of Ukraine, as well as every land user should realize that soils are the basis of food security of the state; they are a conditionally renewable resource and need protection and appropriate measures to restore their fertility; preventive measures for the protection and preservation of soils are much cheaper than their restoration.
