Agricultural land, which has risen in price by 76% since the market opened in July 2021, could see its price increase by up to 80% in dollar terms over the next three years.
This view was expressed by Oleksandr Chornyi, co-founder of the land investment service Zeminvest, and Serhii Kramarenko, a land investment expert and author of the “Gruntovno – Land Investment Fund” project, during a panel discussion at the Invest Talk Summit 2026 conference in Kyiv, organized by the “Minfin” resource.
At the moderator’s request, Chornyi predicted that the price of one hectare of farmland in the “corn belt” of Cherkasy Oblast, with a lease agreement of up to three years, could rise from the current $3,000 +/- $200–$300 to closer to $6,000.
According to Kramarenko, he would buy this land right now “without haggling” for $3,500–$3,700 per hectare and would not sell it for less than $6,200–$6,500 in three years.
“Over the past four years since the land market opened—most of which coincided with the war—land has proven to be arguably the most promising asset in Ukraine from a financing perspective. Unlike in 2021, when no one understood how it would work, the market has crystallized and currently remains a buyer’s market. That is, there are still more people wanting to buy a quality asset than those wanting to sell it, and this trend will likely continue,” Chornyi emphasized.
The co-founder of the land investment service Zeminvest also noted that land prices are currently rising faster than rental rates, but the latter will certainly rise as well.
“If two years ago, investments in agricultural land were at 7–8%, today you can already buy at 4–5% and even at 3%, with the understanding that over the next two years, rent will gradually rise,” Chornyi believes.
In his opinion, if rent rates are currently 3-5%, they will double in 10 years—to 5-8%.
The procedure for rezoning agricultural land for industrial and energy facilities now takes 1.5 to 2 months instead of the previous one to three years, said Dmytro Kysilevsky, deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development.
“Given the need to construct new energy facilities before next winter, this streamlined procedure will resolve many issues for communities concerned with energy independence,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
The MP explained that he and his team developed a step-by-step procedure—from submitting an application to issuing a reasoned conclusion. The purpose of the document is to establish a uniform standard of operation for all regions of Ukraine. Kysilevsky emphasized that the mechanism allows for the rapid conversion of agricultural land for industrial use outside populated areas, even where urban planning documentation has not yet been developed.
According to the guidelines, this procedure will remain in effect during martial law and for five years after its conclusion. It permits the construction of industrial and energy facilities (excluding nuclear), warehouses, and agricultural buildings. A separate list of critical infrastructure, specifically electricity and gas supply networks, may be established under this scheme within cities and villages as well.
The process begins with submitting a request through the Unified State Electronic System for Construction (USESC). Executive authorities, local governments, or private landowners have the right to do so. Tenants cannot submit such a request on their own. The document must include the facility’s classification code, development parameters, hazard class, and estimated resource usage volumes.
The authorized architectural authority must review the request within 10 business days to ensure there are no environmental or historical-cultural restrictions. The result is a reasoned conclusion. In the event of a positive decision, the document is automatically considered a special type of urban planning conditions and restrictions (UPCR), which eliminates the need to obtain additional documents for the facility’s design.
The conclusion serves as the basis for making changes to the State Geocadastre without developing land management documentation. Design of the facility can begin immediately; however, a construction permit is issued only after the land status has been finalized. The procedure for obtaining technical specifications has also been simplified: the client may obtain them at any stage, but must do so before the facility is put into operation.
Kysilevsky clarified that the procedure has already been sent to the Regional State Administration for transmission to urban planning authorities in local communities.
As previously reported, the Verkhovna Rada had earlier passed a law allowing, during martial law, for the simplified rezoning of land for industry, logistics, and relocated enterprises without the preparation of urban planning documentation.
In 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers allocated UAH 34 million to support 10 agricultural enterprises operating on reclaimed land in the Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Odesa, Sumy, and Cherkasy regions, according to a statement by the press service of the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture on its Telegram channel.
The ministry specified that the program has ensured the irrigation of 2,500 hectares of agricultural land and expressed confidence that this will increase the sustainability of agricultural production in the face of climate risks and military challenges.
“Investments in land reclamation are investments in the development of agricultural production. Thanks to state mechanisms, farmers can restore irrigation infrastructure, use land more efficiently, and plan production cycles even in difficult conditions,” said Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture Iryna Ovcharenko, whose words are quoted in the report.
The Ministry of Economy reminded that state support provides for compensation for the costs of reconstruction and/or construction of land reclamation systems. The maximum amount of payments is UAH 26,500 per 1 hectare of land where hydraulic reclamation is carried out.
Austria will allocate EUR5 million to Ukraine for farmland clearance and EUR2 million to support the Grain from Ukraine program amid a visit by Austrian Foreign Ministry chief Beate Meinl-Reisinger to Kiev on Friday, Die Presse reported.
“For Meinl-Reisinger, the trip to Kiev is the ‘first real trip abroad’ in her new position, as Brussels, which she visited last week, is not really a visit to another country for her,” the publication wrote.
The European media outlet added that the Austrian foreign minister’s luggage includes a check for EUR5m to help demining agricultural land and EUR2m to supply Ukrainian grain to Middle Eastern countries that need it.
In the second quarter of 2024, the number of agricultural land sale and purchase transactions in Ukraine amounted to 27.3 thousand with a total area of 60.8 thousand hectares, which is 6.3% more than in the first quarter in terms of the number of transactions and 3.3% more than in terms of the area of land in circulation.
These are the results of a study conducted by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), commissioned by the USAID program.
“The main factor behind the growth of indicators in the second quarter was a record increase in the volume of the land market in April 2024, when 10.3 thousand purchase and sale transactions were concluded with a total area of 22.5 thousand hectares. After that, the market volumes declined in May (9.0 thousand transactions with a total area of 19.8 thousand hectares) and in June (8.0 thousand transactions with a total area of 18.5 thousand hectares),” analysts stated.
In their opinion, this decline is due to the limited liquidity of farmers, as the sowing campaign has already been completed in May-June, while the harvest has not yet begun, which limited their financial resources. In addition, amid rising land prices after the opening of the land market to legal entities, landowners may wait to sell. Analysts also suggest that there is seasonality in the farmland sales market.
According to KSE experts, in general, the volume of the land market has been recovering since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, but has not reached pre-war levels. The average monthly sales of agricultural land for six months of 2024 amounted to 19.9 thousand hectares, which is 38% lower than the pre-war figures. At the same time, the area of agricultural land transactions due to the occupation and hostilities has decreased by more than 20% since February 2022.
If we extrapolate the figures for the first half of 2024 to the whole year and do not take into account the areas where the land market is hampered by hostilities, then this year 0.8% of the total amount of agricultural land will be in circulation, which is almost in line with the figures of countries with developed land markets. (…) Given the trends of monthly sales growth until February 2022, it can be argued that if not for the full-scale war, the average monthly volume of land in circulation would be much higher than 32.2 thousand hectares. Thus, the land market has the potential to grow in the short term, according to the KSE study “Land of Endurance”.
In January-March 2024, the capitalization of the agricultural land market in Ukraine increased by UAH 202.5 billion, due to a 7% increase in the number of agricultural land sales transactions and an 11.2% increase in land prices, said Vice President of Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) for Economic Education, Professor Oleg Nivievsky at the seminar “Land Market: New Players, New Challenges, New Prospects” organized by KSE and the USAID AGRO program.
According to his information, in the first quarter of 2024, 25.7 thousand transactions of purchase and sale of agricultural land plots with a total volume of 58.8 thousand hectares were concluded in Ukraine, which is 7% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2023, which recorded a record number of transactions of purchase and sale of agricultural land for the entire time after the start of the full-scale invasion.
In the first three months of this year, the weighted average price of a hectare of agricultural land increased by 11.2%. While in the fourth quarter of last year it amounted to UAH 37.7 thousand, in January-March 2024 it increased to UAH 42.0 thousand per hectare. Thus, the capitalization of the agricultural land market has increased by UAH 202.5 billion since the beginning of this year, stated Nivievsky, and attributed these phenomena, in particular, to the opening of access to the land market for legal entities from January 1, 2024.
“Despite the full-scale war and a rather limited model, the agricultural land market in Ukraine is developing successfully. A clear indication of this is the recent decision of the National Bank to increase the liquidity ratio of agricultural land from 0.35 to 0.5. This has already opened up the possibility for the agricultural sector and landowners to attract additional funding worth $25 billion, which is comparable to the annual financial needs of farmers and landowners,” said the KSE Vice President.
Roman Neter, KSE Agrocenter expert, said that in January-March 2024, 436 legal entities purchased 2957 agricultural plots with a total area of 8.5 thousand hectares. At the same time, a little less than half of the transactions took place in March 2024, when 276 legal entities exercised their right to purchase agricultural land, acquiring 1253 land plots with a total area of 3.5 thou hectares.
He recalled that at the end of 2023, before the launch of the second stage of the land market, a number of experts expressed concerns about the possibility of large players accumulating large areas of farmland. But in the first quarter of 2024, these fears were not confirmed.
“The share of legal entities in the land market in the first quarter was only 14.5%, while the rest of the transactions are still made between individuals. At the same time, the opening of access to the land market for legal entities is already having a positive impact not only on liquidity but also on market transparency,” Nater emphasized.
Ksenia Sydorkina, USAID AGRO Program Director, said that the development of the agricultural land market is increasingly affecting the public finance system of communities after the personal income tax paid by military personnel was redirected to the state budget. Since January 2024, the increase in revenues related to agricultural land has offset the decline in other community tax revenues by a quarter. For example, in February of this year alone, taxes related to agricultural land accounted for 13% of all community tax revenues, compared to 10% in February 2023, and reached UAH 3 billion, which is 20% higher than the same period last year.
“The agricultural land market is an additional resource for the restoration of territories, the potential of which has yet to be realized by joint efforts of the government, lawmakers and communities,” said USAID AGRO Chief of Party and expressed confidence in the need to implement the reform of spatial development of territories and a number of other projects on land consolidation, irrigation development, affordable lending for small and medium-sized agricultural producers, including with the support of the Partial Guarantee Fund for Agricultural Loans, as well as with the support of the Fund.
Sydorkina said that international law experts from the Civitta, Aequo, and EasyBusiness consortium, with the support of the USAID AGRO program, have developed a concept for harmonizing Ukraine’s land legislation with EU law. The concept envisages the development and adoption of 14 legislative acts that will facilitate the approximation of Ukrainian legislation to European law, the development of land relations and the agricultural sector as a whole.
