James Brooke, veteran American journalist in Kyiv, produces Ukraine Business News each weekday. Here we give you a daily summary – and a link to his site

Monday 1 July

– For the first time since before communism, Ukrainians can now sell their farmland to other Ukrainians. Eventually, a national referendum will decide whether foreigners can buy Ukrainian farms. For more background on this topic, here’s a 2018 story from Bloomberg BusinessWeek:

«Like so much in the region, it all harks back to the messy transition from communism to capitalism. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukrainians whose forebears had been victims of collectivization were awarded parcels of land averaging four acres and together totaling 166,000 square kilometers (64,000 square miles), or an area almost the size of Florida. In 2001, Kiev passed a law prohibiting the sale and purchase of these plots, a ban that has been extended nine times.»

– Dobrozem is a new online platform for farm sales.

– Some are encouraging intelligent land reform: diversification of produce and animal farming instead of simply corn-growing.

– Meanwhile, as Australia contends with China on matters of human rights and trade, and as China restricts Australian imports, Ukrainian grain exports to China are increasing.

You can find more details and other headlines at Ukraine Business News and you can sign up to receive their e-newsletter released at 6am Ukraine time each morning. James Brooke is a former longtime New York Times foreign correspondent who previously served as Bloomberg’s bureau chief in Moscow.

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