You're reading: Lawmaker proposes optimizing state farmland management in Ukraine

Lawmaker Volodymyr Pylypenko (Party of Regions faction) has proposed that regional and district administrations be given the right to manage state farmland. 

The draft law on amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine on state farmland management No. 3162 of Sept. 2, 2013 has been posted on the Web site of Ukrainian parliament.

According to an explanatory note to the draft, the right to manage state farmland was transferred to the State Agency for Land Resources and its territorial agencies from early 2013. Earlier, regional and district administrations fulfilled the said functions under the oversight of the State Agency for Land Resources. Today, regional and district administrations manage state land of other categories.

The author of the draft says that the current division of functions is unjustifiable and inefficient.

“We should concentrate functions of state land management of all land categories in the hands of executive power agencies of general competence. This will balance the distribution of powers on the management of state land between the central executive power agency for land issues, local executive power agencies, and local government agencies,” reads the note.

It is expected that this will optimize the management of state land, including through the acceleration of the registration of leasing agreements and an increase in budget revenues.

The state owns around 10.2 million hectares of farmland, including six million hectares that have been rented out.