Vitaliy Koval, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, said that one of the main challenges for the agricultural sector today is to overcome the crisis consequences of the war. First of all, humanitarian demining of agricultural land and its full restoration. This is one of the important areas of work of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy.
According to the ministry's press service, the state budget for 2025 allocates UAH 1 billion for the demining of agricultural land. The Ministry of Agrarian Policy continues to cooperate with international partners on the humanitarian demining process.
‘Humanitarian demining of agricultural land is one of the Ministry's top priorities. I am grateful to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action/Fondation Suisse de Déminage (FSD) for their assistance in this area. The demining programme has already been launched in Kharkiv Region. We plan to expand it to Mykolayiv and Kherson Regions,’ said Vitaliy Koval.
According to him, the programme focuses on supporting rural households and small farmers with agricultural land of up to 300 hectares. In total, 60% of the planned budget will be spent on mine action. The remaining 40% will be spent on supporting farmers in identifying, analysing and restoring their livelihoods.
As part of the joint mine action initiative, satellite imagery and mapping analysis of the areas has already been carried out in cooperation with the World Food Programme. Significant damage to agricultural land by explosive remnants and unexploded ordnance was found in the three areas.
In particular, 11,277.6 km² of agricultural land (including 1,623 km² of untreated land) was analysed in Kharkiv Region. 420,829 craters from explosive ordnance were found.
In Mykolaiv Region, 9,804.4 km² were analysed, which revealed 2,133 km² of uncultivated land and 306,584 explosive craters.
In Kherson Region, 4,747 km² were analysed, of which 719 km² remained untreated and 311,666 craters were identified.
‘This analysis highlights significant challenges for the restoration of agriculture and ongoing risks to the livelihoods of the rural population,’ Vitaliy Koval said.
According to the Action Plan of the National Mine Action Authority, the need to clear agricultural land in 2024 is 512,000 hectares. As of mid-December 2024, the area of agricultural land surveyed since the beginning of the year is more than 315.2 thousand hectares. The area that has been cleared of mines is over 265 thousand hectares.