According to the office of a German parliament
member, the conflict in Ukraine is used to cover up a sale of farmlands in the
interest of major corporations.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The armed conflict in Ukraine is a smokescreen
for the seizure of high-quality cropland by foreign firms funded
by the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, the office of a German parliament member said
on Thursday.
"The conflict in Ukraine is used to cover
up a sale of farmlands in the interest of major
corporations," Birgit Bock-Luna, who heads the office of Niema
Movassat, a deputy for the opposition Left faction in the German
parliament, told RIA Novosti.
Bock-Luna told RIA Novosti a group of faction
representatives had officially inquired with the German government
on the actions of the country's state-run banking group Bankengruppe
KfW that they said is behind the seizure of Ukraine's arable lands,
some of the best in Europe.
Ukraine has a temporary ban prohibiting the sale of farmlands
to foreign entities until January 2016.
But German agricultural concerns – AGRARIUS AG,
germanagrar CEE GmbH, KTG Agrar SE, Agroton and Alfred C. Toepfer International
(ADM) – seize land using leasing schemes and generous loans from German
and global money lenders.
According to data obtained by German lawmakers,
Alfred C. Toepfer International was given a $60 million loan to buy an
additional 50,000 hectares in Ukraine, alongside 50,000 it already
owns.
German lawmakers suggest that large areas
of Ukraine's arable lands could be used to grow genetically modified
crops, away from the watchful eye of the European Food Safety
Authority (EFSA), which is EU's agricultural regulator.
Lawmakers say they have reasons to believe that the German government
has been involved in funding farmland grabs in Ukraine
through its ministries, providing assistance to joint EU and German
agricultural projects with Kiev.
The Ukraine Investment Climate Advisory Services Project,
Germany's agricultural center Deutsche Agrarzentrum (DAZ), and the German
Advisory Group on Economic Reforms in Ukraine are some of the
projects that helped to negotiate land grabs with Ukrainian
government officials, lawmakers said.
Bock-Luna said the Ukrainian government that came
to power in Kiev after last year's coup has been actively giving
away farmland in return for loans from international creditors.
"The previous Ukrainian administration was opposed
to further relaxation of agricultural laws, but this changed
after the coup, with the help of the World Bank and the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development," she added.
Ukraine is a major crop producer in the European
market. It commands over 32 million hectares of farmland, equivalent
to around one third of the arable land in the entire European
Union.
Source:http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150206/1017847475.html
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