Since the beginning of the year, governmental and non-governmental mine action operators have surveyed more than 115,000 hectares of agricultural land, of which 108,000 hectares have been returned to economic use. This was reported by Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine - Minister of Economy of Ukraine. These are the data of the regional military administrations.

“In April, demining units inspected almost 35,000 hectares of agricultural land. In total, since the beginning of the year – more than 115,000 hectares have been surveyed. Of these, 108,000 hectares have been returned to farmers for economic use as of early May. The pace of the survey exceeds last year’s. While in 2023, on average, deminers surveyed 22,800 hectares of farmland per month, in the first four months of 2024, we reached an average of 28,750 hectares per month. But given the scale of potential contamination of the territories, we are working to strengthen the capacity of operators, attract modern technologies and introduce new solutions in the field of mine action,” Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

According to First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine - Minister of Economy, the Government’s priority in this area is also the development of domestic production of demining equipment and localisation of foreign technologies in Ukraine.

“This is not only a contribution to humanitarian demining, but also to economic development, because the production of equipment in Ukraine means jobs and taxes to the state budget, which help us finance our security and defence sector. It is the development of domestic production that is a key component of the Made in Ukraine policy and an absolute priority of the Government,” Yuliia Svyrydenko said.

According to First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine - Minister of Economy, the opening of the market for humanitarian demining will help speed up the clean-up of agricultural land. This year, Yuliia Svyrydenko reminded, UAH 3 billion had been earmarked to compensate farmers buying demining services in the market.