On March 18, 2014 the meeting between the Chairman of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Agrarian Policy and Land Relations Grygorii Kaletnik and the management of All-Ukrainian Association of Village and Town Councils took place. During it the representatives tried to organize a mutual dialogue about collaboration in the field of rural development.

At the beginning of the meeting Grygorii Kaletnik noted that the situation in the villages today is not good and leads to worsening of rural areas and poverty of village population. The reason is the imperfect mechanism of land management, the lack of adequate financial resources, the creation of unnecessary special bodies of executive power and the lack of dialogue with local communities.

During discussion were actual questions of the necessity to give the right to dispose land "within" and "outside" of settlements to local governments or with a help of consultations to local communities, creating favorable conditions for individual farmers and small farmers in the provision of pensions, providing financial support to young specialists for conducting agricultural farming, facilitation of the procedure of issuance of leases of land.

Attention was paid to the fact that today large agricultural holdings, with a land bank of 10 hectares and more, use gaps in the tax laws and minimize their tax burden. Such business structures register in large regional centers and don’t include to the range of their interests investments to the development of rural areas.

Grygorii Kaletnik said: "As a people's deputy of Ukraine I enrolled draft laws , which offer mandatory registration of such entities at the location of land; the introduction of 1% of the collection from normative monetary value of land for the use of agricultural land, the payment from which will go to the accounts of village and town councils; and the provision of the right to dispose agricultural land of state property directly to territorial executive authority bodies,which will help to increase government revenue due to growth in revenues from rental.

I believe that the introduction of such mechanisms will create favorable conditions for the formation of the financial resources of local communities for the development of social infrastructure in rural areas – repair of roads, construction and maintenance of schools, kindergartens, building of sports clubs for young people, etc., reduce the bureaucratic burden on the villagers."

In conclusion, the Chairman of the Committee Grygorii Kaletnik offered to conduct an enhanced meeting with village heads from all areas, farm managers, representatives of agricultural science in order to exchange ideas, make suggestions and identify mutually beneficial ways to create an effective mechanism for the development of rural territories in Ukraine.