Hundreds of the Association of Farmers and Private Landowners of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Agrarian Union members came to the walls of the parliament building to express their protest against the latest legislative initiatives that concern agriculture. The Day before the rally, the Agrarian Union of Ukraine had issued an appeal urging all people “who do not want to put up with the government’s extortionate attitude to the farmer” to come. The picketers approached the fence separating the square in front of the Verkhovna Rada building from the Mariinsky Park, held banners and chanted “Shame on you!”
They demanded repeal of the export duties on some grains (wheat, barley, and corn) and rejected additional duties on rapeseed, soybeans and sunflower seed that were proposed by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade in the bill it had prepared. Let us remind the reader that Ukraine has already introduced export duties on wheat (9 percent of the declared value but not less than 17 euros per metric ton), corn (12 percent but not less than 20 euros per metric ton) and barley (14 percent but not less than 23 euros per metric ton), effective July 1, 2011 through January 1, 2012. According to the farmers, the duties in place deprive them of a share of their profits and threaten the future harvest.
“We are tired of appealing to no avail. In addition, they now propose extra duties. These new duties became for the farming community the last straw that broke the camel’s back,” The Day was told by the chairman of the Agrarian Union of Ukraine Hennadii Novikov, when the latter was asked about the causes of the picketing.
According to the director general of the Ukrainian Club of Agrarian Business Association Volodymyr Lapa, the continuation of the existing export duties and the introduction of the new ones would hit the agricultural industry with the force it had not experienced in the last 10 years. He said that direct losses of agricultural producers would exceed eight billion hryvnias next year, but there would be significant indirect losses, too, because, for example, grains and oil seeds prices were already declining, just in anticipation of the duties’ introduction. Total losses would exceed 10 billion hryvnias, Lapa commented.
Novikov said that even this latter amount would not be final, as one should add to farmers’ losses also about 300 million hryvnias in unpaid VAT rebates to grain traders, as agrarians were, in effect, forced to compensate the traders for these losses out of their own pockets. “So, the government earned about 500 million hryvnias from the duties in three months, but resulting losses to far-mers would exceed 10 billion hryvnias,” as Novikov summarized it.
Yet another reason for the far-mers coming to the walls of the parliament building was the land reform that is a vital question for them, too. They urged the authorities to extend the moratorium on the purchase and sale of agricultural land as long as the land tenure would lack definitive legislative regulation. They also appealed to the people’s representatives to adopt the draft resolution calling for the all-Ukrainian referendum on land reform to be held.
Novikov said that should the state refuse to listen to the farmers’ appeals, all of us would have to forget about prospects for a good harvest next year, as agrarians would just refrain from sowing cereals. The protests, on the other hand, would become stronger and stronger in this case, he said.
