Ukrainian companies are reducing their land banks: why they are selling land
11 April 16:49
66 companies have reduced their land banks to less than 100 hectares since the opening of the land market and dropped out of the list of large landowners of the State Land Cadastre. This is evidenced by the data of the Opendatabot platform, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.
However, as the study notes, other companies from the list of large landowners have been reducing their land holdings: over the year, the area of their land plots decreased by 8225.4 hectares.
Opendatabot reminded that since January 2024, the land market has been open for business. However, instead of a wave of purchases, businesses that owned a significant number of land plots are selling the land. 2,554 land plots have been sold by companies in the year since the land market was opened for business.
What can explain this trend?
The main problem for small farms in doing agribusiness is financial capacity. This is emphasized by Denys Marchuk, Deputy Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council.
The specific location of land in Ukraine also affects the decisions of entrepreneurs.
“It should be understood that in Ukraine, the system of field construction does not have large arrays,” the expert explains. – “Our average field in Ukraine is 50-60 hectares. And when you run a business, you need it to be a single array in order to reduce the cost of cultivating this land. An enterprise is not interested when it is offered 3-4 shares in a field, because it will not even be able to cultivate them.”
According to Denys Marchuk, if there are no such arrays, there may be less interest in buying them.
How active is land buying and selling in Ukraine?
In 2024, 106,669 land plots with a total area of 320,660 hectares were sold in Ukraine. The average price per hectare was 46,678 UAH (1,163 USD). This was reported by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy.
According to Minister Vitaliy Koval, despite the opening of the land market, only a small percentage of citizens have exercised the right to alienate their land in 3.5 years.
“Although in 2024, the volume of land sold was higher than in the first 2.5 years after the moratorium was lifted,” Vitaliy Koval stated.
In 2024, the largest areas were sold in Poltava (45,622 hectares), Odesa (33,024 hectares) and Dnipro (30,623 hectares) regions. The smallest areas were sold in Volyn (818 hectares), Rivne (909 hectares) and Ivano-Frankivsk (1,094 hectares) regions.
How much land is bought and sold in Ukraine
According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, since the moratorium was lifted, legal entities have bought 25,157 plots (78,307 hectares). The average price of 1 hectare is 62,656 UAH (1,561 USD). Individuals bought 81,512 plots (242,353 hectares). The average price per hectare was UAH 41,510 (USD 1,034).
The highest average price was recorded in Ivano-Frankivsk (UAH 89,744), Lviv (UAH 71,390) and Poltava (UAH 66,232) regions. The lowest average price was recorded in Zaporizhzhia (UAH 33,981), Mykolaiv (UAH 34,033), and Sumy (UAH 34,936) regions.
