Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solsky in the Verkhovna Rada on Thursday announced the main financial instruments that were in force in the industry during two years of full-scale war, including Affordable Loans 5-7-9, the launch of the Partial Credit Guarantee Fund, support for microfarmers, planting gardens, greenhouses and livestock farming.

"These two years and two months have been extremely difficult for Ukrainian agriculture. At the same time, and I am absolutely sure of this, the agricultural market, farmers, and agricultural business have shown extreme endurance and adaptation to difficult conditions and the ability to develop even in such conditions," he said.

As one of his most important tasks as minister, Solsky named ensuring financing of the agricultural sector in war conditions, in particular the launch of the Affordable Loans 5-7-9% program for farmers.

According to him, more than 50% of the financing under this program is lending to agricultural producers. Farmers received 1.5 times the maximum amount of preferential loans, UAH 90 million. Over two years, some 14,639 agricultural producers used them and attracted more than UAH 67 billion. At the same time, the farmers returned 99% of the borrowed loans.

Among the latest changes in the Affordable Loans 5-7-9 program, Solsky named the extension until March 31, 2025 of lending to farmers under previously concluded loan agreements; increasing the preferential credit limit for farmers involved in livestock farming; extension of loans to agricultural enterprises whose production facilities as of February 24, 2022 were in the territory of active hostilities or temporarily occupied.

In addition, thanks to the cooperation of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and the World Bank, $580 million was raised to compensate for interest under this program, the minister said.

Solsky also said that during 2022-2024. Work was carried out to launch the Partial Agricultural Credit Guarantee Fund, which guarantees 50% of the outstanding principal amount to farmers with land plots of up to 500 hectares. The fund started operating in February 2024.

The head of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy thanked the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy for adopting the law on electronic agricultural receipts. "Already this year, agricultural notes will be one of the ways through which farmers will be able to receive additional funds," he said.

Speaking about the results of other state programs for financing the agricultural sector, Solsky noted the support of microfarmers with subsidies per hectare and per cow in 2022 and 2024, for which more than UAH 1.6 billion were allocated in 2022. More than 31,000 farmers took advantage of it. In 2024, the program will be expanded to additional types of livestock farming, and the amount of payments for farmers from the occupied territories will be increased.

The grant program for gardens and greenhouses from 2022, which the state compensated for 70% of the costs, was used by 215 farmers who planted new gardens and built greenhouses on 2,500 hectares, created almost 1,400 permanent jobs and more than 23,000 seasonal ones.