Dear farmers!
Ukraine is our land first of all. The land inherited from our fathers – our Fatherland. Today Ukrainian farmers may be disinherited. They want to turn the farmer into a servant deprived of his rights and a slave on his native land. We have run to limits, and then the loss of our holy of holies, our homeland.
Despite the farmers’ complete destitution and ruined Ukrainian countryside, our incumbent government provides the purchase and sale of farmland starting from January 1, 2005. They want to rob Ukrainian countryside once again.
I have accentuated time and again: Ukraine is not ready to sell land. Our state has no guarantees and laws to protect the farmers from abuses, fraud and gangsterism. And their land is their only treasure!
Last year the «Our Ukraine» faction introduced a bill to the parliament to prolong the moratorium on the sale of farmland till 2007. 304 people’s deputies supported us, but at government’s insistence Leonid Kuchma vetoed that bill. This is neither accident nor incompetence. Authorities are purposefully pressing towards appropriating farmland and sharing it among them.
Dear friends! Our countryside is the heart of Ukraine. And saving countryside we save Ukraine. I am running for presidency because I know how to do it and I am ready to shoulder responsibility for the future of Ukrainian countryside. No special services and no blackmail will stop me. I will win the elections and during the first days of my presidency I will enact a law envisaging prolongation of moratorium on sale and purchase of agricultural land. Jointly we will prevent oligarchic criminal from buying farmland for a trifling sum! We won’t allow robbing farmers again!
The main issue of my programme regarding the land policy is: land privatization is not an end in itself, but the way to ensure its efficient utilization and to raise competitiveness of production.
Nearly a third of alienated agricultural land plots is exhausted and need serious «treatment.» Who but the state ought to revive these lands? That is why the state is to be a major subject in the land market, to conserve land and gradually restore its fertility. It is necessary to revise completely agricultural land’s distribution, to find out and eliminate drawbacks, and to compensate material and moral damage to each person.
As to the form of farming, we shouldn’t idealize any of them, but each should be considered. Still all kinds of economy are to be equal in the country. The new government will be prompt to stabilize the agricultural situation.
We will ensure long-term lax credits for farmers to enable them to sell their goods to advantage.
We will provide subsidies for farmers per hectare under crop, quintal of production and head of livestock, thus they will be rewarded for their toil.
Agricultural products purchasing prices won’t ruin farmers.
Farmers will be able to sell their goods at world prices.
There will be a single land tax for all the agricultural producers.
Farmers will be insured against bad harvests, murrain and pillage.
Ukrainian farmers will be sure of their future!
Criminal government has ruined our countryside, and we will revive it! We will save Ukrainian countryside together!
Sincerely,
Victor Yushchenko.