Foreign farmers who are cultivating land in Ukraine have addressed the Ukrainian president, prime minister and chairman of the Verkhovna Rada seeking to avoid discrimination and restriction of competition on the farmland market.

The corresponding letter from German and other West European farmers was posted by Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture Tymofiy Mylovanov on his Facebook page on Monday.

"Amendments [to bill No. 2178-10] for second reading were made, and according to them, only Ukrainian citizens and Ukrainian companies founded solely by Ukrainian citizens will have the right to sell and buy land. We believe that such restrictions will lead to unequal conditions for the activities of business entities on one commodity market and, as a result, restriction of competition in this market; the onset of negative consequences for our market positions," they said in the letter.

According to foreign farmers, the adoption of the bill in the proposed version violates the principle of equal protection of all business entities by the state, enshrined in Part 4 of Article 13 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 6 of the Commercial Code of Ukraine. The proposed changes will create relatively favorable competition conditions for individual business entities, while for the rest they will remain unchanged.

"The basis for our farms is rented land. If the land market opens, then the fields will be bought by other, possibly competing farms, and we will partially or completely lose our livelihood. We all built our farms over the years and invested hundreds of thousands or millions of euros. We created a lot of jobs and in most cases were the only employers in the village," they said.