Agricultural producers are in dire need for long-term credits - this is a proverb and byword among agro-industrial complex officials, mass media and, naturally, agrarians. Small wonder, long-term credits are requisites for production expansion, renewal of production assets and ensuring sustainable sector development. According to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, 64% of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises need long-term credits (for 5-22 years), 16% would like to obtain mid-term credits (for up to 5 years), and only 10% would be satisfied with short-term credits.

18 April 2005, a round table took place at the Supreme Rada of Ukraine to discuss problems related to Ukraine’s accession to the WTO. The event attracted a lot of journalists. Olha Fischuk, the reporter from a popular Internet-newspaper “Grani-Plus”, asked the Economic Expert of the Institute for Rural Development Tamara Ostashko to give her comments on possible WTO accession consequences for the Ukrainian agricultural producers, in particular, and the rural area on the whole.

"Will Ukraine Become a WTO Member?” — this issue was discussed at the round table held by the Center for Ukrainian Reform Education in Odesa. The Institute for Rural Development’s specialists, Head of the Ukrainian Quality Association Petr Kalita and others made their presentations before the round table’s participants – journalists and economists from the southern regions of Ukraine.

Ukraine can be admitted to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this year. This was stated by the Verkhovna Rada People’s Deputy Vasily Antonovich Kalinchuk at the Round Table held by the Center for Ukrainian Reform Education in Odessa on 31 March. The meeting of ministers of WTO member countries will be convened by the end of this year. As a rule, new member admission issues are considered at similar events. Informal stakeholder meeting will take place in June to identify the issues that Ukraine will have to solve by September.

The issue of abrogation or prolongation of the moratorium on purchase and sale of agricultural land from the beginning of 2005 remains the major issue in the Ukrainian economy. This was confirmed by Leonid Kuchma in his speech made at the Scientific and Practical Conference “Strategy for Sustainable Development and Structural and Innovative Reorganisation of the Ukrainian Economy (2004-2015)” where the President spoke in favour of the moratorium’s abrogation.

Svatove rayon authorities in Luhansk oblast will purchase agricultural produce primarily from small-scale producers (private plot holders, small-scale farmers etc.), Deputy Director of Institute for Rural Development Alexandre Tsepko said to ForUm.

High unemployment rate and, respectively, low income levels have been one of the most acute problems in the rural areas of Ukraine for quite a long period of time. It is no secret that 60% of rural residents have their income even lower than poverty level. As a rule, remuneration in rural areas does not reach a half of average salary in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s effort to adjust to market conditions is hindered by transition difficulties. This is especially true for the agricultural sector its representatives being, perhaps, most vulnerable groups before market realities. Agricultural advisory service is one of the mechanisms to resolve rural people’s problems today.

Unfortunately, praised in songs and poems Ukrainian villages, are not so attractive for living today. Naturally, we are not referring to villages like Kozyn in the Kyiv oblast or other settlements with two- or three-storey “huts” on the Dnipro river bank. Salaries in agriculture are the lowest in Ukrainian economy, and virtually no stimuli exist for the development of non-farm businesses there. Village club and cultural centre activities come to running a-go-go at best, and the rural library fund is only complemented with semi-official newspapers, as according to statistics, most budget allocations earmarked for the social sphere “sink” in cities.

Who can help survive an old lonely woman in a remote village? No one except her neighbours, people living in the same village, poorer or richer than she is. It was always like this, Director of the Institute for Rural Development Svitlana Prokopenko says, when common misfortune is shared it becomes not so scary. Experts of the Institute for Rural Development operating under the Ukraine Rural Livelihoods Programme financed by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has been working in 13 rayons, thus putting this idea into practice. Our conversation with Svitlana Stepanivna is about the way the community helps people survive in an impoverished village and support provided to rural communities by the Project.