[Diggers350] War and Theft: The Hostile Takeover of Ukraines Agricultural Land - Private Equity's 21st Century Global Enclosure for Slavery
Tony Gosling
tony at cultureshop.org.uk
Wed Nov 27 02:05:07 GMT 2024
War and Theft: The Hostile Takeover of Ukraines
Agricultural Land Private Equitys 21st Century
War For Global Enclosure and Slavery
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War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraines Agricultural Land
Emacs!
<https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/war-theft-takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land>View
of the wheat field during the harvesting season near Krasne village, Ukraine
https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/war-theft-takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land
War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraines
Agricultural Land exposes the financial interests
and the dynamics at play leading to further concentration of land and finance.
The total amount of land controlled by oligarchs,
corrupt individuals, and large agribusinesses is
over nine million hectares exceeding 28 percent
of Ukraines arable land. The largest landholders
are a mix of Ukrainian oligarchs and foreign
interests mostly European and North American as
well as the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia.
Prominent US pension funds, foundations, and
university endowments are invested through NCH
Capital, a US-based private equity fund.
Several agribusinesses, still largely controlled
by oligarchs, have opened up to Western banks and
investment funds including prominent ones such
as Kopernik, BNP, or Vanguard who now control
part of their shares. Most of the large
landholders are substantially indebted to Western
funds and institutions, notably the European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank.
Emacs!
Western financing to Ukraine in recent years has
been tied to a drastic structural adjustment
program that has required austerity and
privatization measures, including the creation of
a land market for the sale of agricultural land.
President Zelenskyy put the land reform into law
in 2020 against the will of the vast majority of
the population who feared it would exacerbate
corruption and reinforce control by powerful
interests in the agricultural sector. Findings of
the report concur with these concerns. While
large landholders are securing massive financing
from Western financial institutions, Ukrainian
farmers essential for ensuring domestic food
supply receive virtually no support. With the
land market in place, amidst high economic stress
and war, this difference of treatment will lead
to more land consolidation by large agribusinesses.
The report also sounds the alarm that Ukraines
crippling debt is being used as a leverage by the
financial institutions to drive post-war
reconstruction towards further privatization and
liberalization reforms in several sectors, including agriculture.
War And Theft: The Takeover of Ukraines Agricultural Land
by Frédéric Mousseau and Eve Devillers. For The
Oakland Institute, PO Box 18978 Oakland, CA 94619 USA
<https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/war-theft-takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land>February
21, 2023
https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/war-theft-takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land
The war in Ukraine has been at the center stage
of foreign policy and media reports since
February 2022. Little attention, however, has
been given to a major issue, which is at the core
of the conflict who controls the agricultural
land in the country known as the breadbasket of Europe?
Emacs!
This report addresses this gap identifying the
interests controlling Ukraines agricultural land
and presenting an analysis of the dynamics at
play around land tenure in the country. This
includes the highly controversial land reform
that took place in 2021 as part of the structural
adjustment program initiated under the auspices
of Western financial institutions, after the
installation of a pro-European Union (EU)
government following the Maidan Revolution in 2014.
With 33 million hectares of arable land, Ukraine
has large swaths of the most fertile farmland in
the world. 1 Misguided privatization and corrupt
governance since the early 1990s have
concentrated land in the hands of a new
oligarchic class. Around 4.3 million hectares are
under large-scale agri- culture, with the bulk,
three million hectares, in the hands of just a dozen large agribusiness firms.
In addition, according to the government, about
five million hectares the size of two Crimea
have been stolen by private interests from the
state of Ukraine. The total amount of land
controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals, and
large agribusinesses is thus over nine million
hectares, exceeding 28 percent of the countrys
arable land. The rest is used by over eight million Ukrainian farmers.
The largest landholders are a mix of oligarchs
and a variety of foreign interests mostly
European and North American, including a US-based
private equity fund and the sovereign fund of
Saudi Arabia. All but one of the ten largest
landholding firms are registered overseas, mainly
in tax havens such as Cyprus or Luxembourg. Even
when run and still largely controlled by an
oligarch founder, a number of firms have gone
public with Western banks and investment funds
now controlling a significant amount of their shares.
The report identifies many prominent investors,
including Vanguard Group, Kopernik Global
Investors, BNP Asset Management Holding, Goldman
Sachs-owned NN Investment Partners Holdings, and
Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages
Norways sovereign wealth fund. A number of large
US pension funds, foundations, and university
endowments are also invested in Ukrainian land
through NCH Capital a US-based private equity
fund, which is the fifth largest landholder in the country.
Most of these firms are substantially indebted to
Western financial institutions, in particular the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and
the International Finance Corporation (IFC) the
private sector arm of the World Bank. Together,
these institutions have been major lenders to
Ukrainian agribusinesses, with close to US$1.7
billion lent to just six of Ukraines largest
landholding firms in recent years. Other key
lenders are a mix of mainly European and North
American financial institutions, both public and
private. Not only does this debt gives creditors
financial stakes in the operation of the
agribusinesses, but also confers a significant
level of leverage over them. This was evidenced
by the debt restructuring of UkrLandFarming, one
of Ukraines largest landholders, which involved
creditors including the Export-Import agencies of
the US, Canada, and Denmark, among others, and
led to important organizational changes including
layoffs of thousands of workers.
This international financing directly benefits
oligarchs, several of whom face accusations of
fraud and corrupt dealings, as well as the
foreign funds and firms associated as
shareholders or creditors. Meanwhile, Ukrainian
farmers have had to operate with limited amounts
of land and financing, and many are now on the
verge of poverty. Data shows that these farmers
receive virtually no support compared to agribusinesses and oligarchs.
The Partial Credit Guarantee Fund established by
the World Bank to support small farmers is only
US$5.4 million, a negligible amount compared to
the billions channeled to large agribusinesses.
In recent years, Western countries and
institutions have provided massive military and
economic assistance to Ukraine, which became the
top recipient of US foreign aid marking the
first time since the Marshall Plan that a European country holds this top spot.
As of December 2022, less than one year into the
war, the US has allocated over US$113 billion to
Ukraine, including US$65 billion of military aid,
8 which is more than the entire budget of the
State Department and USAID globally (US$58 billion).
The report details how Western aid has been
conditioned to a drastic structural adjustment
program, which includes austerity measures, cuts
in social safety nets, and the privatization of
key sectors of the economy. A central condition
has been the creation of a land market, put into
law in 2020 under President Zelenskyy, despite
opposition from a majority of Ukrainians fearing
that it will exacerbate corruption in the
agricultural sector and reinforce its control by powerful interests.
The findings of the report validate this concern,
showing that the creation of a land market will
likely further increase the amount of
agricultural land in the hands of oligarchs and
large agribusiness firms. The latter have already
started expanding their access to land. Kernel
has announced plans to increase its land bank to
700,000 hectares up from 506,000 hectares in 2021.
Similarly, MHP, which currently controls 360,000
hectares of land, seeks to expand its holdings to
550,000 hectares. MHP is also reportedly
circumventing restrictions on the purchase of
land by asking its employees to buy land and lease it to the company.
Additionally, by supporting large agribusinesses,
international financial institutions are in
effect subsidizing the concentration of land and
an industrial model of agriculture based on the
intensive use of synthetic inputs, fossil fuels,
and large-scale monocropping long shown to be
environmentally and socially destructive.
By contrast, small scale farmers in Ukraine
demonstrate resilience and a great potential for
leading the expansion of a different production
model based on agroecology, environmental
sustainability, and the production of healthy
food. It is Ukraines small and medium-sized
farmers who guarantee the countrys food security
whereas large agribusinesses are geared towards export markets.
In December 2022, a coalition of farmers,
academics, and NGOs called on the Ukrainian
government to suspend the 2020 land reform law
and all market transactions of land during the
war and post- war period, in order to guarantee
the national security and preservation of
territorial integrity of the country in wartime
and post-war reconstruction period.
As explained by Prof. Olena Borodina of the
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU),
Today, thousands of rural boys and girls,
farmers, are fighting and dying in the war. They
have lost everything. The processes of free land
sale and purchase are increasingly liberalized
and advertised. This really threatens the rights
of Ukrainians to their land, for which they give their lives.
At a time of tremendous suffering and
displacement, wherein countless lives have been
lost and massive financial resources spent for
the control of Ukraine, this report raises major
concerns about the future of land and food
production in the country, which is likely to
become more consolidated and controlled by oligarchs and foreign interests.
These concerns are exacerbated by Ukraines
staggering and growing foreign debt, contracted
at the expense of the populations living
conditions as a result of the measures required
under the structural adjustment program. Ukraine
is now the worlds third-largest debtor to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) 17 and its
crippling debt burden will likely result in
additional pressure from its creditors,
bondholders, and international financial
institutions on how post-war reconstruction
estimated to cost US$750 billion should happen.
These powerful actors have already been explicit
that they will use their leverage to further
privatize the countrys public sector and liberalize its agriculture.
The end of the war should be the moment and
opportunity for just the opposite, i.e. the
redesign of an economic model no longer dominated
by oligarchy and corruption, but where land and
resources are controlled by and benefit all
Ukrainians. This could form the basis for the
transformation of the agricultural sector to make
it more democratic and environmentally and
socially sustainable. International policy and
financial support should be geared towards this
transformation, to benefit people and farmers
rather than oligarchs and foreign financial interests.
This 50 page report continues here
<https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/war-theft-takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land>https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/war-theft-takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land
https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/takeover-ukraine-agricultural-land.pdf
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