Love the Land. You did not Inherit It from Your Parents, You Borrowed It from Your Children
The Wisdom of the Indian People
The Public Organization “Knowledge Platform – Agricultural Development and Rural Innovations” is pleased to present to your attention Bulletin No. 2 “The Right to Land in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas”, prepared within the framework of the Project “Peasants’ Rights and Food Sovereignty”.
The Bulletin provides the content of the provisions of this right in the UNDROP, focusing on the possibilities of individual and collective approach to its implementation; on the guarantee of non-discrimination in relation to it; on the state’s obligations to take measures aimed at the conservation and sustainable use of land and other natural resources.
The Bulletin provides an overview of public initiatives, the results of a sociological survey and expert analysis of the results of the land market functioning after the lifting of the moratorium on the sale and purchase of agricultural land on 1 July 2021. The authors notes concerns about the continuation of land market transactions in times of war, especially the legal provision on the possibility of purchasing 10,000 hectares of agricultural land by legal entities from 1 January 2024. This actually leads to discrimination in the implementation of the right to land of peasants, small agricultural producers and their families for military and economic reasons and threatens the preservation of the territorial integrity of the state during the war.
The Bulletin provides data from the State Emergency Service and the results of a general assessment of the impact of the war on agricultural land to determine the need for additional surveys, demining, removal of explosive remnants of war, neutralisation of contamination with various chemical compounds, withdrawal from cultivation and specifics of agricultural production on frontline and border lands.
There are interviews with Ukrainian farmers – Ruslan Homych, Oleg Bondarenko, Vasyl Hordiyko and Vasyl Burlaka – on the peculiarities of their realisation of the right to land, their attitude to the introduction of a free market for the sale and purchase of agricultural land, the peculiarities of pricing and taxation of agricultural production and farming in the conditions of war, and their attitude to environmental practices.
The bulletin is intended for peasants, other people working in rural areas, farmers, representatives of state and local authorities, scientific and educational circles, civil society organisations and all those who are not indifferent to the issues of civil society formation in terms of regulation and observance of the right to land of individual Ukrainians in our independent state.