The USAID AGRO Program intends to invest more than UAH 70 million in pilot irrigation modernization projects in Ukraine, and is also considering the possibility of extending its support and additional funding, said Program Director Kseniya Sydorkina at the II Ameliorative Forum in Odesa.

"The irrigation reform for Ukraine is just as important in its consequences as the land reform, which we consistently support. The key to success in both cases is the decentralization of management. The creation of water user organizations and operators of state reclamation systems is a tool for such decentralization. Now our attention is focused on the support of water user organizations, which unite farmers to introduce and develop energy-saving technologies in irrigation," the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food quoted Sydorkina as saying.

Speaking to participants in the forum, Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky stressed that the land reclamation reform is developing successfully, despite the full-scale invasion and undermining of the dam of Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.

"The reclamation reform is the right one. Since the interests of everyone coincide in it: local farmers, associations, local authorities, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, donors. There are already first results – local organizations have been created and plans are made to increase irrigation and make it cheaper, and water of better quality, respectively, earn more. I am convinced that irrigation will develop on the land where there is now a shortage of water," the minister said.

In turn, Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy Vitaliy Holovnia noted that the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, together with USAID AGRO, has begun implementing pilot projects to restore irrigation systems in Cherkasy and Odesa regions, and the introduction of reclamation network facilities into the State Land Cadastre has also begun.