Once, there were more than 5,000 residents in Luhy, a village in Vinnytsia oblast with the beautiful name that means “Meadows.” Today the population has shrunk to fewer than a thousand. Villagers are steadily abandoning their birthplace, although it seems that even their flight is being hampered by the authorities — the local roads are terrible. A “dirt road” is an absolutely impassable swamp. Surveyors who come only twice a year never think about reinforcing the ground and repairing the bridges. There are no funds for repairing the so-called solid surface: some areas have not been fixed for 15 years. It takes at least an hour to get to the district center. As a result, sick persons sometimes die on the way to the hospital.
Who is to blame? The situation is basically the same throughout the country. Village and district councils operate on a shoestring budget. The main source of revenues is a tax on natural persons, i.e., villagers, most of whom live mainly off their private and leased plots of land. There are no taxes to speak of.
What about keeping children well-dressed and educated? Nobody is thinking of what they will do in the village after school. Will they have to start drinking? This is why young people are leaving the village, because their status here is worse than that of pensioners. The able-bodied population is dwindling, as well as the number of skilled builders and harvester operators without whom the countryside will never be modernized.
This state of affairs has forced the Kyiv-based Association of Agrarian Engineers sound the alarm. After reading in The Day that Ukraine is eligible for unheard-of amounts of financial aid (one billion dollars) from the US- based Millennium Challenge Corporation, rural engineers — many of whom now reside in cities — are writing to as many addresses as possible to obtain the American money and use it to resuscitate the vocational training system for young villagers. If you are a highly skilled builder, tractor driver, harvester operator, metalworker, welder, or milking machine operator, you are sure to find work in a state-run or private farm, or even become a farmer.
This idea has found support in the Ministry of Education and in parliament. Letters are being sent to Ivan Pliushch, political coordinator of the Millennium Challenge program in Ukraine. As estimated by a higher vocational school in Pohrebyshche, also in Vinnytsia oblast, where efforts are still being made to provide young villagers with an education, it will take as little as $55 million to carry out the first stage of the vocational school revival scheme. Part of this amount must be found in the Ukrainian budget, otherwise, the Americans will not believe in our good intentions.
It would also be a good idea to request funds for water supply, sewerage, and roads. In any case, the Ukrainian countryside is heading toward an abyss. Who knows today what kind of water villagers are drinking and what diseases they have contracted as a result of bad water? This is the reason why they do not want to live and work here, and the energy of the world’s most industrious peasantry continues to seep down the broken, patched, pot-holed, and unpaved “roads” to the cities and even to faraway countries.
We asked The Day’s experts what they think lawmakers and the government should do to breathe new life into the Ukrainian countryside.
Sevastian BOIKO, farmer, Teofipil district, Khmelnytsky oblast:
“The current situation is that energy might leave even the villages where it still exists. Prices for farm produce are falling, while the cost of fuel, fertilizers, and insecticides is on the rise. Unfortunately, a shop or a marketplace buyer cannot see that this year we marketed pork and beef at half of last year’s price. Some of those who are not involved in production are cashing in on this. Imported and smuggled meat is like a noose around the neck of the national commodity producer. So the first thing the government should do is to streamline this sector, in which case our leaders will have to make some efforts and show patriotism and probity.
“There is quite a different situation in villages that have not built anything on the ruins of the collective-farm system. The situation has reached the point that the nouveaux riches sometimes rent up to 15,000 or 20,000 hectares of land, paying the original owners with ham, honey cakes, or bottles of vodka. They reserve the right to buy the land whenever they want; they destroy farms and leave people to their own devices. These latter-day landlords are as concerned about social facilities as about last year’s snow. Incidentally, I have noticed that about a third of these lessors are helpless elderly people, who have neither heirs nor legally- certified wills. But who will take their land plots ‘for love?’ For some reason, this pressing problem is still not being addressed.
“I think the local authorities should take this process into their hands. They should see who is taking plots of land and with what intentions. Perhaps they could do it this way: the lessee makes certain strictly controllable investment commitments, while the central government ensures that the local administration duly exercises this control.
“I am deeply convinced that few visiting lessees sincerely respect lessors. Local energetic and businesslike specialists, who are respected by their fellow villagers, should be sought. They will have to start from scratch. Then the government could grant a tax holiday for three or four years, a common practice in the civilized world.
“An energy resumption program should be drafted for each and every village, which would also include a ‘review’ of the agreements previously signed by the lessee and the lessor. Unfortunately, the scheme should be subject to control. All the idle talk about general programs for socioeconomic development and scrupulous care for the countryside on the part of various parties and branches of power hides the dismal state of affairs in the villages of Sushivtsi and Bilhorodka, neighbors of our Kuzmyntsi: in those villages jobless peasants hang around with time on their hands, and young people binge-drink out of boredom and despair.
“The main thing is to adopt measures that will provide people with good wages and decent prices for their land and property shares. These indispensable things do not require any supernatural state expenditures. What is needed is effective managerial measures.”
Viktor TKACHENKO, Dmytro and Tkachenko farming enterprise, Andrushiv district, Zhytomyr oblast:
“Unfortunately, agriculture isn’t getting any tangible support from the authorities. All that the members of the government do is squabble over portfolios. But we need justice. There should be some kind of planning, for example, forecasting the demand in and prices for certain types of farm produce. They say the sugar plant in Chervony, which is also in our district, is going to be scrapped. But there are people who grow sugar beets in their fields: how many of them will become unemployed? Suppose I grow potatoes, cabbage, and carrots (I’ve got about 10 tons of carrots right now), but there are no buyers. Nobody cares about that. I am looking for buyers and finding them. But if I have grown rape, I have to stand in line and wonder whether it will be accepted. I have 2nd and 3rd-grade wheat, but they are asking for 4th grade, i.e., forage grain. But I know they will sell it as food grain.
“In other words, we require needs assessment and stable price formation. For example, I mostly hold out at the expense of vegetables, but somebody else has grown wheat and sold it at a low price at harvest time in order to buy diesel fuel and lubricants. Let’s say one of us has 20 hectares of land, it’s not worthwhile cultivating it: that will only help you keep your head above water. To be able to buy even the cheapest harvester, you have to till at least 100 hectares of land. I have 650, including leased plots, so I managed to buy five tractors, including three brand- new Europacks, a new drier, and some other machines.
“But most farmers cannot afford this. Look at machinery loans. Last year the government promised partial compensation for interest payments. We took UAH 400,000 worth of loans, and the state was supposed to compensate us 12 percent, but instead we were only given 4,000 hryvnias and told that there is no more money. They are also supposed to pay us compensation for sowing-time mineral fertilizers, but I get compensation only if I buy Ukrainian, not Russian, fertilizers. But it makes no difference to the plants whose fertilizer it is. If I buy them before the New Year, I won’t get any compensation either. But I buy fertilizers in the fall to ensure good crops the next year.
“As for the social sphere, district schools are working more or less well. But many people don’t want to work around here anymore and have left. They have gotten used to being registered at job centers and drawing unemployment benefits. Then they drink and carouse for days and have grown used to not working. Some of them come to me, but even if I give them a new tractor, they are sometimes too lazy to work. I also have to worry that some of them may break it in a drunken binge. But if the job center strikes them off its list, they will run away to the city. So, only pensioners are left. In Antopil, for example, where the land is good, 30 houses are already standing empty.”
Vasyl SKOPYK, farmer, village of Pidbirtsi, Pustomytiv district:
“Farming is now in the grip of strange processes: people are leasing land. Some used to have 400 hectares, but they have given half away, although any economist will say that only a large farm can reduce the cost of produce. But this economic law does not work in Ukraine for the simple reason that people are leasing their land because it is difficult to market their produce. As you know, a farmer has to work all year round and only sees results later in the year, when he begins to market the fruits of his labor. And at this crucial moment you cannot help feeling, very painfully, that you are totally helpless and should rely only on yourself or perhaps on the Lord. The central and local governments do not support us. I have the impression that the state does not care at all about the way we live. When you turn on the television, you see nothing but endless quarrels, squabbles, and reciprocal complaints: both politicians and ministers ignore us. Meanwhile, large trading companies are dictating their own conditions, which really complicate the life of an ordinary farmer.
“This is why we are so envious of European Union farmers, who are subsidized for every cultivated hectare as well as for every kilogram of harvest sold. But our Ukrainian producer doesn’t receive any support at all: a lot of food is being imported and it’s even cheaper than ours.
“It’s a kind of vicious circle: when bids are invited, our average farmer always loses out because his produce is more expensive and he does not employ up-to-date technologies. We are afraid of loans because they carry a high interest rate. The only comfort is that the state has finally come to its senses, and now you can use the tractor you are buying as collateral — not your property, as was the case earlier. I would like to borrow some money and build an up-to-date grain storage system, but again, I am afraid of the interest rate: what if there is a poor crop? Last year we had a good harvest, but hundreds of kilograms are rotting. The storage temperature does not meet the requirements (it was a warm winter), although I only work with high-quality imported varieties that can be stored until May or even June, provided there are proper storage conditions. Can you imagine what I feel when I see that all my efforts and my family’s are going to waste?
“So, soft loans are by far the most important factor for our survival. We need them to buy farm machinery, fuel, and lubricants. A farmer has to shell out 100,000 for a tractor. True, the state has promised to offset 30 percent as long as there is ready money. If there are no funds, you have to fly by the seat of your pants. In other words, there should be a good supply of target-oriented funds designed to support a farm producer. Nor is there a facility that would help farmers sign food supply contracts. Three years ago I signed some contracts, and I saw clearly that this makes things easier. We used to supply products to Lviv’s schools and kindergartens, and everybody was satisfied with our vegetables, while I felt rewarded for my hard work. But now such structures as Intermarket have smothered us, and we are not in a position to sign direct contracts. These kinds of structures are in fact intermediaries that dictate their own conditions, undercut our prices, and profit on our backs. At the same time, the consumer will not benefit from this: retail prices will skyrocket in any case.
“It should be recognized that we know how to grow farm produce: we were doing this 10 years ago and are doing it now. I have a lot of experience. But experience is not the only thing we need. We need some cooperatives and procurement offices that would buy farm produce. When March comes around I have to plan my schedule. There has to be some kind of coordinating facility to tell us who is growing what: why should we pre- program overproduction of one product and leave another in short supply? I want to work hard, and I do, but naturally I would like to earn a profit for my family and have an opportunity to develop my business. The situation is that we work haphazardly, and very often there is no place to market our produce. If I could program my work in some way, it would be easier: I would know what crops I should plant and in what quantities, and to whom I will be selling this at the price that was formed on the market at the time of sale.
“There should be some kind of regulation by either the state or private facilities. As it is, it is no longer possible to work without a consultative and informational body like this. I don’t mean, of course, coercion and hundred-percent compulsory fulfillment of orders. But in general, it won’t do to be left high and dry. I heard recently that potatoes cost more than four hryvnias at Donetsk markets, while here in Lviv they go for 30 kopecks. Had we known this, we would have marketed them over there even for 1.70 hryvnias to everybody’s heart’s content.
“In any case, we are investing huge funds in the future crop: so let’s do it wisely. Besides, why should we purchase everything abroad — seeds, herbicides, etc.? In my opinion, it would be a good idea to establish regional agrarian centers all over Ukraine. It is very easy to do this on the basis of large wholesale markets that could be regarded as agrarian enterprises. Such an enterprise could comprise an information center, procurement offices, and services that would offer us premium seeds and perhaps farming machinery and fertilizers. This would streamline the pricing policy and distribute commodity flows more uniformly.
“Ukraine urgently needs a law on wholesale markets, which would provide an impetus to developing all this. Farmers should be taken care of today, not once Ukraine joins the WTO and has to shoulder the heavy burden of international demands. This burden will entail new losses because we don’t have proper certification of land and quality produce. There will also be many other things that we are not considering today.”
