Front line farming: Bombs disrupt critical Ukraine industry

NOVOMYKOLAIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — An unexploded rocket sticks out of a field, and another is embedded in the ground of the farm compound. Workers found a cluster bomb while clearing weeds, and there’s a gaping hole in the roof of the shrapnel-scarred livestock barn.

All work has halted on this large eastern Ukrainian farm, whose fields and buildings have been hit so many times by mortars, rockets, missiles and cluster bombs that its workers are unable to sow the crater-dotted land or harvest crops like wheat.

Returning to planting and harvesting “will be difficult, very difficult,” said Viktor Lubinets, who handles crop production at the Veres farm. Even if the fighting ends, the fields must first be cleared of unexploded ordnance and shrapnel.

And the fighting is far from over. The roar of an incoming projectile fills the air, the nearby detonation shaking the ground and sending a plume of black smoke into the sky. Lubinets barely flinches.

Agriculture is a critical part of Ukraine’s economy, accounting for about 20% of gross national product and 40% of export revenue before the war, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. The country is often described as the breadbasket of Europe and millions rely on its affordable supplies of grain and sunflower oil in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia where many already face hunger.

But Russia’s invasion in late February has dealt a heavy blow, damaging farmland, crops, livestock, machinery and storage facilities, as well as severely hampering transport and exports.

The FAO estimated in July that preliminary damage to the industry ranges from $4.3 billion to $6.4 billion — 15% to 22% of the total value of Ukraine’s pre-war agriculture sector, estimated at $29 billion.

The Veres farm is a stark example. Its 5,700 hectares (14,085 acres) of land would usually grow wheat, barley, corn and sunflowers, and it had 1,500 cattle.

Calculating the total loss from the war isn’t easy, Kurinnyi said, but he estimated that about 10 million hryvnias (about $270,000) had been lost from crop production and around 1 million hryvnias ($26,700) for the 38 cattle killed in the strike.

With Ukraine’s counteroffensive pushing the front line further east, he said they were more confident of being able to plant and were starting to prepare the soil for winter crops.

But for the heavily damaged farm where Lubinets works, a return to the fields is still far off.

“We had been living calmly before this war, we had been working, we had ... achieved something, had been striving to do something — and now what?” he said. “Everything has been damaged, everything has been destroyed, and we have to rebuild all this, starting from scratch.”