On June 23, Alex Lissitsa, the CEO of Ukraine’s leading agriculture holding IMC, and virtual bank Monobank cofounder Dmytro Dubilet announced the launch of Dobrozem, a database that provides information about agricultural land online.
Both co-founders wrote about it on Facebook the same day, saying it was a crucial step to prepare the market as the country gets ready to open for a long-awaited opening of land sales on July 1.
“I truly believe that our platform will make the market more transparent, clear and honest, and everyone will benefit from it,” Dubilets wrote on social media.
Meanwhile, his partner wrote that “the Dobrozem land market will be an effective tool for both investors wishing to buy land and landowners willing to sell it at market price.”
Farmers and buyers can already submit information online about their land and get the land’s previous value or check the documents for compliance with the current legislation.
The system includes satellite images and aerial views of each plot, displaying detailed data on meteorological history and cultivated crops for each site.
Roman Leshchenko, Ukraine’s minister of agriculture, told the Kyiv Post in June that land sales would take place online to avoid corruption schemes in the sector.
The launch of the website is well-timed. It takes place a week before the government will officially lift the ban on farmland sales on July 1, the local agriculture industry’s biggest change since the country’s independence.
The move will effectively open some of the country’s famous fertile soil — chornozem — for sale to Ukrainian farmers, who up until this point, have leased it out.
The sales will be limited to 100 hectares per individual to avoid monopolies; land will only be available to legal entities beginning in 2024; foreigners will have access to the market after 2024 if a nationwide referendum approves it.
Ukraine is one of the most fertile places on the planet, with 25–30% of the world’s reserves of black earth. The country boasts around 42 million hectares of agricultural land, covering 70% of the country.
At present, 32 million hectares are cultivated annually, representing an area larger than Italy.
Agriculture is Ukraine’s largest export industry, accounting for 10% of the gross domestic product in 2019; it brought over $22 billion to the country that same year.
