After Kiev adopts a law on the free sale of agricultural land, Ukrainian farmers will be forced to put their cattle under the knife and massively cut jobs.
The director of the private agricultural enterprise “Peskovskoye” in the Chernigov region, Valery Kolosha, stated this during a press conference, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We have 3 thousand hectares of land and 3 thousand livestock. I am a member of the Dairy Producers Association, and they ask the question: “Wait, what should we do with the animals?”
I'll give you statistics: if on 01.09. There were 48 thousand cows, then during the period from 01.01 to this period the livestock decreased by 26 thousand. And in the last month, when people started actively talking about the land, there was a decrease of 5,2 thousand cows, which provide milk and dairy products to our population.
I believe that there is an immediate threat, the amount of livestock reduction will be very large, it will be rapid, because as soon as the land market opens, we will slaughter the cows, because the cow and the land are connected, there will be no land - we must get rid of it. Behind this are people who work. I'll have to fire you from my job and put it on the stock exchange.
Today, as soon as the conversation about selling land began, everyone stopped buying equipment and building. Everyone sits and thinks: what should we do?” he noted.
At the same time, the general director of the agricultural company “Perlyna Podolia”, deputy of the Khmelnytsky regional council, Sergei Ivashchuk, stated that in this way the falling agricultural sector will drag down the entire Ukrainian economy.
“We don’t understand when the Prime Minister says that we will have economic growth of 5% next year, and then 4 to 7%. It comes out to 33%, but he talks about 40%.
But at what cost? Because in the agricultural sector, those who deal with cows will have to slaughter in order to survive. The agricultural sector alone will fall by 20%.
In general, this will be minus 3% of economic growth, and jobs will be reduced.
Processing will also react, because there will be no milk, there will be no sugar beets, 35-40 operating factories will stop,” the agrarian concluded.