RIA Novosti | 31 May 2011

Alexey Nasyrkov

Foreigners will be barred from buying Ukraine's farmland when Kiev launches a massive privatization program next year, the country's agricultural policy minister said on Tuesday.

Ukraine's parliament voted to liberalize its land market in a tight vote in March.
"At the first stage, we will only be introducing the land market for Ukrainian nationals," Mykola Prysyazhnyuk told RIA Novosti.

 "We understand that if we make the market free, then $30 billion will be enough - and that's not a lot for world financial corporations - to buy up all of our land," he said.

Prysyazhnyuk said Ukraine would export about 1 million tons of maize, wheat and barley before this year's harvest is gathered in.

Last week, Kiev scrapped quotas for grain exports it imposed in October following a severe drought last summer.

Russia, the world's third-largest wheat exporter in 2009, will lift its ban on grain exports on July 1.

Aid and development charity Oxfam has said world leaders should take action to prevent food price rises.

In a report released on Monday, the charity forecast that the average cost of key crops could double by 2030.