We'll be coming back to this topic, for now this is a placeholder/
About 9,600 purchase-and-sale transactions for a total of 22,000 hectares of agricultural lands were concluded in Ukraine in February 2024.
About 9,600 purchase-and-sale transactions for a total of 22,000 hectares of agricultural lands were concluded in Ukraine in February 2024, which is 50% more than in January 2024, Ukrainian media reported citing an analytical survey of the Ukrainian land market carried out by the Kiev School of Economics Center for Food and Land Use Research along with the U.S. Agency for International Development Program for Agrarian and Rural Development.
This previous peak in sales of farmlands since the start of the crisis was observed in December 2023, when 8,200 deals involving 19,800 hectares of farmland were concluded. The market leaders since the beginning of 2024 have been the Poltava (3,700 hectares), Dnepropetrovsk (2,700 hectares), and Kirovograd (2,000 hectares) regions.Since the land market was opened for legal entities, 266 companies have exercised the right to purchase agricultural land, including 223 companies that purchased at least one plot of land in February 2024....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:
January 2024
"Ukraine: Still Europe’s Breadbasket"
Big Money: Agriculture In The Ukraine Development Fund
April 2023
"War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land"
Farmlandgrab and The Oakland Institute are our go-to sources for the down-and-dirty of corporate agriculture. Here is the latter...
*****
....This is a subject we have been posting on for years and many of our links can be found in March 2023's "Big Money: "Who Really Benefits from the Creation of a Land Market in Ukraine?" including Pyatt and Nuland and the Maidan coup, the disappearing IMF loot and the IMF's subsequent demand that Ukraine open their land market to foreigners for any more multi-billion largess, President Z and his patron Kolomoisky, the Templeton sovereign bond fund shenanigans with the Ukraine debt, the shock therapy applied to Russia in the '90's as the role model for Ukraine, some of the immediately pre-war players in Uke farmland, the positioning of BlackRock as advisor and gatekeeper for the reconstruction to come and much more. For events and posts we didn't stuff into that post the 'search blog' box upper left comes in handy.
Big story, big money. Come get you some.
And links embedded therein:
....from Ukrinform via Farmlandgrab, March 2, 2023:
More than 150,000 land agreements signed in Ukraine
A total of 153,659 land agreements have been signed in Ukraine since the land market was launched.
The relevant statement was made by the Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
“In general, as of today, a total of 153,659 land agreements, covering 344,061 hectares, have been signed since the land market was launched,” the report states.
In terms of the total area of lands in relation to which the agreements were signed, the following regions took the lead: Kharkiv (40.8 thousand hectares), Dnipropetrovsk (31.5 thousand hectares), Poltava (28.5 thousand hectares), Kirovohrad (28.3 thousand hectares) and Khmelnytskyi (21.5 thousand hectares).
The average price of land per hectare is UAH 39,000 in Ukraine. This indicator was calculated based on 125,397 land agreements, covering 284,483 hectares....
....MORE
Previously on The Harvard Boys:
- In 2018, Linking to The Nation: Steyer and Summers and The Harvard Boys Do Mother Russia
- And to Economic Principles: "The /Other/ Russia Story"
On the IMF in Ukraine:
- August 2020 "How $1.8 billion in aid to Ukraine was funneled to the outposts of the international finance galaxy"
- March 2022 National Bank of Ukraine Governor On the Current Situation
- November 2022 "Thieves’ Paradise in Kiev — IMF Admits It Doesn’t Know How Much Ukraine Has Received of $35 Billion in Promised Foreign Cash, or Where the Money Was Spent"
And coming into the present:
- August 2022 Ukraine: When Capital Invades
- December 2022: "Shock therapy on the world economy"
- And More On BlackRock's Plans For Ukraine
- February 2023 "Marketing Ukraine's Reconsturction To Fuel The War"
There are many, many more. See, for example:
December 2014's ""The Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture" (linking to The Oakland Institute)August 2021's "In fertile Ukraine, a 20-year freeze on the sale of farmland is lifted -- with uncertain consequences"
One of the reasons for the Maidan Revolution was to open the sale of Ukrainian land to foreigners—it's much too good for the Ukes to keep to themselves—but that step, required by the IMF as a condition of any further loans to replace the loans that were stolen and laundered (just what was Templeton up to with the Ukrainian sovereign debt bets?), that step needs a referendum and enabling legislation.
But this phase, also required by the IMF, is the starting point.
And more including such hits as:
Okay Kids: Here's One Of The Reasons We Had That Whole Ukraine Maidan 2014 Revolution Thingy
Of particular interest is Ihor Kolomoisky, backer of both the current President Zelensky and the Azov Battalion.
Don't tell me Jews and Nazis can't get along!
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stories on 'ol Ihor:
May 1, 2021
Will We Ever Find The Looted Billions The IMF Sent To Ukraine? Ihor Kolomoisky's Adventures In America
But then a $5 billion cash honeypot is apt to draw....um, people.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has done an astoundingly thorough job of turning up facts and figures on one part of the story of a very, very bad person....
AND:
Secrets: Ukraine's Zelensky Will Be Thrown Under the Bus As His Oligarch Patron Gets Squeezed (Deutsche Bank and dirty money)
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has made something of a cottage industry digging into Kolomoyskyi's doings. Here's the latest, February 20, 2022....
It's been seven years since the Maidan and it's about time we find out where all the money went.
"Ukraine Oligarch’s Troubled US Steel Plant Has Been Quietly Mining Bitcoin: Report"
We may be hearing more about this master thief in the coming months.
As
the Department of Justice works through the cases - and I hope to hell
we get a special prosecutor, the magnitude of what was going on in
Ukraine gets quite impressive.
Related:
"Oligarchs Weaponized Cyprus Branch of Ukraine’s Largest Bank to Send $5.5 Billion Abroad"
"Ukraine Probes Ruling that State-Run Bank Must Pay $350m to Oligarchs"
Federal agents raid offices of company tied to Ukrainian oligarch
Glenn
Greenwald's Co-Founder of "The Intercept", eBay Billionaire Pierre
Omidyar Co-funded Ukraine Revolution Groups With US Government
Meanwhile, as part of the IMF shenanigans in Ukraine a land reform package was required which basically meant Ukraine had to sell land to foreigners to get the latest multi-billion dollar loan....
That's it, one little sentence.
So we'll begin with some background. This is far from the whole story because quite a bit has been learned in the intervening years but it's a good place to start.
Two things to keep in mind:
1) Ukraine is the most corrupt place in Europe (outside Brussels)
2) Nothing is as it seems.
As mentioned yesterday, that was the simple question yours truly asked before stumbling into the rabbit hole of "Why Was The American Government Training Neo-Nazis In Ukraine?".
The reason for the original query was the mandate from the IMF that in return for one of the tranches of multi-billion dollar loans related to the whole PrivatBank theft, money laundering, Maidan, Victoria Nuland web of lies and corruption that Ukraine allow foreigners to buy farmland.
Some really good farmland, by all accounts.
Farmlandgrab keeps track of this stuff all over the world and a couple of their posts give a quick overview of what's what.
Here is one part of the puzzle, not the stuff that attracts the foreign money:....
