Reading Text a. The Agrarian Policy in Ukraine.

1.Read and translate the following text.

According to the data of expert and analytical agencies the reform in agriculture is the essential condition of overcoming the crisis in the Ukrainian economy. Describing the situation we may say that today the agriculture of Ukraine and the national economy on the whole are in a lamentable condition. Virtually the present-day agricultural complex of Ukraine presents a rather depressing picture. There are a lot of high-flown words about building a controlled market economy but in fact we have no real agricultural reform. This is the corner stone, which determines the real progress in the sphere of agriculture. And this progress may be attained only under the presence of a deliberate legislative base and a sufficient amount of investments.

Following the principle of necessity of the drastic changes the Government and the Supreme Council took some measures in the frame work of improving the situation. Having combined the efforts they created and adopted a number of laws aimed to advantage the agriculture. Among them we can point out a new project of Landed code, Act of lease, the privatization of property in agrarian-industrial complex, Act of the priority of social development of village, Act of the single tax and debt restructuring in farm enterprises. Through these laws the peasants received the sound title to land and the right to dispose of products of their labour, besides the amount of tax was reduced due to the Act of the single tax. But despite the taken measures there is still a decline in the agrarian sector. It can be explained by the dominating role of collective land use. The experience of other countries – the former republics of the USSR – shows that the conditions for economic growth were created only in the countries with the individual land tenure system (Uzbekistan, Turkmenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia).

The experts consider that antirecession policy should include the admittance of free bargain and sale of agricultural land, the extension of the possibility of its lease and land lien. The creation of legal and administrative possibilities for those members of the collective farms who want a private land share and introduction of the temporary program of state support for the individual farmers are also very important.

2.Find in the text the equivalents to the following Ukrainian words and word combinations:

плачевний стан, високі слова, досягати, виважений, достатня кількість, радикальні зміни, в рамках, Закон про оренду, єдиний податок, реструктуризація боргів, законне право, система індивідуальної власності на землю, договір про купівлю-продаж, оренда, застава.

Text b. Ownership and Management in the British Agriculture

1.Read and translate with the help of dictionary.

Agriculture occupies 77 per cent of Britain’s land area, which is farmed under many different arrangements. Around 66 per cent is owner occupied and about a third is rented. However, within the regions there are some significant variations. In Northern Ireland, for example, virtually all farms are owner occupied and they also account for around 80 per cent of the area farmed in Wales.

Much of Britain is family farmed, sometimes running into several generations on the same land, which perpetuates a strong sense of tradition. In Wales, the country’s own language and culture bind rural communities even more strongly.

Institutions are also major landowners, among which the largest include the Crown (more than 101,000 hectares), the Church, the Ministry of Defence, and some pension funds and insurance companies which maintain a small agricultural portfolio among their property investments. Most of the land owned by these funds is tenanted.

The future of agricultural tenancies is under review in England and Wales. In the 1970s and 1980s, full agricultural tenancies entitled the tenant to three-generation succession, so that a farm would often be in the hands of the same tenant family for 100 years or more.

In 1984, the Agricultural Holdings Act cut this to one generation only, but landowners are still reluctant to release control of their farms so long.

There has been rapid increase in other types of less formal arrangements, allowing the owner to control of his land but have it farmed by someone else. They have enabled many individuals to increase the area they farm, and have also given rise to considerable opportunities for farming companies, which may farm thousands of hectares all over Britain and whose scale of operation enables low costs and a good return to the landowner.

It is estimated by land agents that informal arrangements could now account for around 10 per cent of farmed land in England and Wales. The reform of complex agricultural tenancy legislation will allow greater freedom for people who wish to negotiate their own arrangements for whatever period they wish, within a legal framework that gives some essential safeguards to each party.

In Northern Ireland, over 20 per cent of the agricultural area is subject to the well-established practice of letting land for periods of 11 months.

2.Render the text in English.