Ministry of Agrarian Policy presented the strategy of agricultural development in Ukraine until 2030

The Ministry of Agrarian Policy has prepared a draft Strategy for the Development of Agriculture and Rural Areas in Ukraine until 2030, which will become a guide for the agricultural sector on the path to European integration.

This was announced by Acting Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Taras Vysotskyi during the presentation of the document.

“The purpose of developing and implementing the Strategy is to prepare the agricultural sector for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, ensure sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas, and create favorable conditions for achieving strategic goals for the formation of a competitive, sustainable and diversified agricultural sector. After joining the EU, we must be guided by the principles of European agricultural policy,” Vysotsky said.

Therefore, one of the tasks of this document is to get as close as possible and prepare for the realities of the European market, to consolidate these guidelines so that everyone in Ukraine understands the steps that the state will take in the agricultural sector.

The head of the ministry noted that expert discussions of the document are currently underway, and it is planned to submit it to the Ukrainian government for consideration in the fall. It is planned to adopt the Strategy by the end of 2024.

As the authors of the project emphasized, Ukraine has already made progress on its European integration path in some areas of agricultural production, food processing and production, control over product safety and quality, and implementation of sanitary measures. There have also been changes in financial and budgetary policies, primarily due to the harmonization of legislation and the launch of the State Agrarian Register.

However, a full-scale war requires some adjustment of these steps.

“When integrating our agricultural sector into the European Union, it is impossible to take into account only the areas that are relevant for European countries. First and foremost, we need to take into account the challenges that are relevant to us, which are related to the war. Unfortunately, the scale of these challenges is decades-long,” Vysotsky added.

Thus, the Strategy developers took into account the deterioration of the national and global food security situation due to changes in logistics, the amount of mined and contaminated land, the destruction of irrigation and drainage systems, primarily due to the undermining of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam, as well as the overall reduction in Ukrainian production and food exports.

It is expected that the Strategy will be used to develop a priority program for the development of agriculture and rural areas for the period 2024-2027, which will propose specific reforms and investment measures.

The source of expenditures for the implementation of the measures envisaged by the project is the state budget. In 2024, it is proposed to allocate more than UAH 1 billion for these purposes; subsequently, expenditures are planned to increase to about 1% of the budget.

The implementation of the proposed measures, according to the authors of the Strategy, will help bring back into cultivation 17.4% of agricultural land that was unavailable as of June 2024; increase the share of processed agricultural raw materials to 38.8% from the current 20.1% and increase its share in exports in monetary terms to 50%.

It is also expected that by 2030, the number of profitable enterprises in crop production will reach about 95% of the total, and in livestock production – up to 85%.

As reported, the Ministry of Energy has prepared a draft Hydrogen Strategy until 2050, which provides for an increase in hydrogen production in Ukraine to 1.3 million tons in 2035 and 3.0 million tons in 2050.

Tags: Ukraine, agricultural sector