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#Ukraine agribusiness firms in ’quiet land grab’ with development finance | Claire Provost and Matt Kennard | Global development | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jul/30/ukraine-agribusiness-firms-quiet-land-grab-development-finance

Hundreds of millions of dollars in development finance from the World Bank’s investment arm have helped to fund the controversial expansion of a billionaire’s agribusiness empire in Ukraine, amid growing concern that land and farming in the country are increasingly falling into the hands of a few wealthy individuals.

Controlled by one of Ukraine’s wealthiest men, Yuriy Kosiuk, the agribusiness company Myronivsky Hliboproduct (MHP) dominates the country’s domestic poultry market and exports chicken and luxuries such as foie gras across Europe. Since 2010, it has received at least $200m (£128m) in long-term loans from the bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Much of this funding has gone to support the building of Europe’s largest industrial chicken farm in the middle of Ukraine’s rural heartland. Almost 300km south of Kiev, the Vinnytsia poultry farm is part of an audacious effort to transform the country once known as “Europe’s breadbasket” into its “meatbasket”.

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But villagers living near the Vinnytsia project, which is already partially constructed and in operation, said no one is listening to their concerns about its impact on their area. They also said that people are being pressured into giving their land over to the project by signing long-term land leases.

#agro-industrie #agro-business #industrie_de_la_volaille #terres