In Ukraine, about 4 million hectares of land are cultivated outside the legal field: Ministry of Economy
In Ukraine, more than 4 million hectares of land are used illegally, which causes the state annual losses of tens of billions of hryvnias. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture Denys Bashlyk during a public discussion “From Strategy to Results: How Integrity Affects Economic Growth on the Example of Land Relations”.
“Satellite monitoring shows that in Ukraine about 4 million hectares of land are cultivated in “grey” or “black”. That is, these are land plots that have been cultivated for three years in a row, but no rights have been registered on them. The potential damage caused by such a number of land plots cultivated “in the shade” is about 24 billion UAH per year”, – he noted.
According to Bashlyk, the indicated amount does not include potential unpaid taxes, as well as losses from the sale of agricultural products grown on these lands without official registration. He added that the situation became more complicated after 2022, when land inspections were actually suspended due to the war. Currently, the Ministry of Economy, together with the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre, is working on ways to safely update the public cadastral map.
Separately, the Deputy Minister emphasized that the key task is to restore effective control over land use, but taking into account a risk-based approach:
“Our task is not to put pressure on “white” business, but to find a mechanism to make inspections transparent, impossible for abuse. Here we cannot do without public control. This is one of the most effective safeguards”.
The government official also drew attention to the need to digitize land processes. According to him, it is not just about transferring old procedures to a digital format, but about their complete restructuring with an emphasis on reducing unnecessary stages, automation, integration of registers and reducing contacts between citizens and officials.
Among the risks, Bashlyk singled out cases when opaque schemes are agreed upon within “loyal” companies that coordinate actions through closed communication channels. In his opinion, this once again proves the importance of openness, public access to information and participation of the public sector in monitoring the activities of state bodies.
