Parliament today approved in the first reading a bill enabling loans to farmers with state guaranteed collateral, under the emergency crediting facility for grain producers. The bill also prohibits lenders from collecting older debts from the funds granted under these new loans.
MP Alexandr Trubca, the sponsor of the bill, told Parliament that in 2020-2024 grain growing farmers have faced a series of systemic problems, one major factor being the draughts of 2020 and especially 2023. There are also external factors, in particular Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In the 2022-2023 agricultural season, all the negative factors overlapped, so in the fall of 2022, during the autumn works and the preparation for the 2023 spring sowing, the prices of the main categories of inputs (diesel, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides) increased by up to 2.5 times compared to previous years. In the 2023 agricultural season, international grain prices plummeted, with the situation being compounded by a serious drought.
To become a law, the bill is to be approved in the final reading as well.
