Ukrainians are in no hurry to sell their agricultural land

Over the past 16 months since the launch of the second stage of land reform in Ukraine, 148,000 land plots for commercial agricultural production with a total area of 442.7 thousand hectares have been purchased under purchase and sale agreements. This was reported by the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, Vitaliy Koval, in his column on Liga.net.

 

"Considering that the total area of land for commercial agricultural production in Ukraine is 24.9 million hectares, since the opening of the land market for legal entities, they have purchased only 1.77% of the total area of such land. That is, the concern that increasing the limit on the purchase of land in one hand will lead to massive land purchases by large players and small farmers will not have access to the market has not been confirmed," he noted.

 

The Minister also noted that of the lands for commercial agricultural production alienated under a purchase and sale agreement, starting from January 1, 2024, only 39.2 thousand plots with a total area of 120.05 thousand hectares were purchased by legal entities, which amounted to 27.1% of the total area of commercial lands alienated under a purchase and sale agreement.

 

Only one legal entity in Ukraine came close to the limit of 10 thousand hectares "in one hand" (LLC "Zemelny Kray" purchased about 9 thousand hectares of land for commercial agricultural production).

 

In addition, the opening of the market had a positive impact on the price of land. If in December 2023 the average cost of one hectare was 38.8 thousand UAH, then in March 2025 it increased by 37% to 53.1 thousand UAH. This increases the income of landowners who decided to sell their plots, and also expands the possibilities for lending to farmers against the collateral of land.

 

"Thus, it can be argued that the approach to opening the land market turned out to be successful and balanced. Over the past year, only 0.48% of land for commercial agricultural production has passed into the ownership of companies and about two thousand legal entities have concluded agreements. This means that the mechanism is working - and the opening of the market has not closed the way to land for small and medium-sized farmers, but has created new opportunities for scaling their activities," noted V. Koval.