Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed into law a bill introducing changes to several legislative acts on Ukraine on the issue of collective land ownership, revising rules for land tract use of agricultural lands, for avoiding land arrogation and stimulating land irrigation in Ukraine.

The presidential administration's website on Sunday said the law would create an effective mechanism for using land tracts, agricultural lands and will foster the necessary conditions for blocking land arrogation and stimulating land irrigation.

The law stipulates aspects of land use and assignation of land plots belonging to land tracts of agricultural land, as well as forest areas bordering the tracts. The law grants the right to owners and users of private plots of farm land to use them for farming businesses without changing the status of the land tracts. It also gives the owners of land plots all forms of ownership of agricultural lands located in the tract the right to exchange plots of their land.

Also defined in the bill are peculiarities of delegating land use and of using lands, which remained in collective ownership between owners of land plots. The law recognizes the property of territorial communities, on the territory of which the land is located, and lands of liquidated collective farming enterprises, except land plots privately owned.

The law enters force the day after its publication.

As earlier reported, Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada in 2018 passed in its second reading and in full draft law No 6049-d, a bill seeking to resolve the issue of collective ownership of land, to improve rules for the use of land in large tracts and stimulate irrigation. Some 236 lawmakers, 10 more than the 226 required minimum, voted in favor of the bill.