Yet the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine has had catastrophic effects on the agricultural sector. Farmers are adjusting to increasingly hostile farmland and shouldering extreme losses. In the northeastern region of Sumy, Mykola Panasenko, a sheep farmer, recently endured two drone strikes on his farm office within a week. These attacks are part of a broader attack on rural life and agriculture in Ukraine. The war has transformed what was once a peaceful profession into a chaotic race against time to save their lives.
Panasenko has raised sheep, though his flock has reduced since the start of the war. He grows rye, oats, and sunflowers, which, like the other crops, have grown much harder to keep profitable. Beyond the physical harm posed to his livestock by the persistent threat of drone strikes, it has interrupted his farming activities.
“My farm was hit by drones right before the lambing season. Tragically, the lambs were stillborn,” Panasenko lamented. His concerns go beyond the day-to-day threat of attacks. “There are no workers for the farms. With the war continuing, so is relative stability a long ago memory,” he said.
Unlike Panasenko, Andriy Sema’s farm hasn’t been specifically zeroed in on by drones—at least not yet. He remains uneasy about the possibility. As a small farmer, Sema only personally farms 150 hectares (370 acres). With the farming season now underway, he serves in a local territorial defense unit three days a week, sharing his time between agricultural and national responsibilities.
The insecurity has significantly impacted Sema’s operations. “Before the full-scale invasion, I had 150 pigs. I sold piglets to the local villagers. Now, I have only a few chickens, ducks, and turkey,” he explained. The move from pigs to poultry has resulted in an immediate loss of income of one-third. To survive, he has started to grow water-efficient rye and sunflowers just to get by.
Sema expressed frustration regarding market conditions exacerbated by the war: “We produce grain that is usually used for baking, but big traders pay only the lower feed rate of grain because they are scared to go near the frontline.” This war cry strikes a chord in the hearts and minds of farmers across Ukraine whose very existence is threatened by bomb blasts and market forces alike.
Victoria is under day-to-day active management of Serhiy Bondarenko. The company grows organic wheat, sunflowers, and rapeseed on a large scale of 45,000 hectares (111,000 acres). For Bondarenko’s firm, the decline in productivity has been 10-15%, as wartime conditions start to settle in. “Twenty percent of our land is in a military restricted zone,” he noted, further complicating farming operations.
The fallout from the conflict has turned a global food crisis into a worsening catastrophe for Ukraine’s agricultural production. Oleh Khomenko, an expert on agricultural economics, describes over one quarter of Ukraine’s arable land still occupied. Khomenko pointed out that 10% of Ukraine’s workforce has been conscripted, even though many of them play a critical role in restoring and maintaining infrastructure.
She continued, “These three years of war have been terrible and the terms of the conflict have shifted. Climate-related losses in agriculture alone amount to $100 billion (£74 billion), he stressed. This paltry figure accounts for non-tidal flooding damages such as elevators and production facilities.
What’s compounding this grim picture is the crippling labor shortage that farmers are experiencing throughout the Southeast region. “While we have some exemptions for key agricultural workers, we’re seeing a labor shortfall of 30% in comparison with just 10% before the war,” Khomenko explained. Farmers are untiringly complaining about the shortage of tractor driver and agricultural production labor.
The challenges Ukrainian farmers are dealing with go beyond just military threats. Rein Paulsen noted that small rural households account for more than one-third of domestically consumed agricultural output yet often receive less attention compared to larger enterprises in discussions about agricultural support and recovery. “They have been seen as a less visible priority,” he remarked.
Paulsen underscored the double disruption of frontline communities where farming practices, often unlicensed, are frequently excluded from support systems. Our priority has been low-income households. They grow food almost exclusively for their own consumption on an extremely small scale,” he added.
Contaminated land with unexploded munitions is yet another urgent matter. As the UK Ministry of Defence recently announced, as of March this year, 138,000 square kilometers of Ukraine are contaminated because of these perilous leftovers from battle. Farmers such as Sema will now no longer have to worry about coming across a booby-trapped surveillance drone while working their fields. We don’t know the whole picture yet. “We personally hear drones nearly every day,” he continued. “Every day it’s getting worse and worse.”
The central trend felt by all Ukrainian farmers right now is stress and instability. Yet the threat of drone strikes and military occupation is ever present on their operations. Consequently, many feel that they have no choice and lose faith in their ability to thrive as farmers.
The most damaging problem since the start of the war is the lack of stability, Panasenko concluded. “We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or even what will happen today.”