Between the ruined cowshed full of cow carcasses and the collapsed granary lies a dismembered hare in the scorched grass. Even that wild animal was not quick enough to escape the destruction of Ivan Mishchenko’s farm. His family business formed a front between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers for weeks. The picturesque and strategic location on a hill overlooking Maka-riv, a suburb of Kiev, explains why heavy guns were fought here.
The resulting devastation and the mines and ammunition left in Mishchenko’s fields show the long-term effects on local agriculture and on the global food supply in which Ukraine plays a crucial role. “Now that the Russians have been chased out of here, it seems safe again. But we have no idea if we will ever be able to repair this damage,” says Mishchenko (66) with moist eyes above his red-veined cheeks. “Whether it is possible to start again. And whether we will be able to harvest later.” Well before the war, the farmer sowed a hundred hectares of winter grain, he says, pointing to the sloping fields.
Ukraine, blessed with the most fertile black soil chernozem, together with Russia, accounts for more than a quarter of global wheat exports. It is also the largest producer of seed and kernel oils, mainly sunflowers. Direct war damage, fighting or even dead farmers, impassable fields, cut off export routes across the Black Sea and scarcity of credit, fuel, fertilizer and machine parts threaten food shortages inside and outside Ukraine. According to Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky half of Ukraine’s crop is at stake† International organizations warn that rising food prices will increase hunger in drought-stricken parts of Africa.
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Direct target
When Ukrainian soldiers knocked on Mishchenko’s door on the first day of the invasion to ask if they could use his granary as a lookout point, the farmer said “of course yes”. Just as he took it for granted that his son-in-law and right-hand man Andri Holovchenko (37), “a real patriot”, joined the reservists to fight. The national defense went for their own safety or revenue.
The military presence made the family business that housed twenty Mishchenkos from four generations a direct target of the Russian aggressor. And the shelling continued after the Ukrainian soldiers left.
“We were completely cut off from the outside world. We stayed for weeks, until it really didn’t work anymore,” says Mishchenko. Then he opened the barn doors to let his cows and pigs go. With a sheet as a white flag, the family fled behind the Ukrainian line.
Before the invasion we did business together, now we’re all going to break
Anatoly Boyko farmer
Gunfights shattered the barns. What was once the residence now consists only of brick walls and twisted iron. The thresher, tractor and other equipment are a total loss. Of the 52 cows that Mishchenko owned, exactly half have disappeared or been killed. He hasn’t got around to cleaning up the cow skeletons buried under the rubble of the barn and the lone pig corpse in the yard.
The most dramatic message came from outside the farm. “My son-in-law, intended successor, was killed when the bus he was carrying injured people was attacked,” said Ivan Mishchenko.
Sowing sunflowers
The destruction and misery on Mishchenko’s farm seems extreme for a country at war too, but it is likely that businesses in eastern Ukraine are in even worse shape. In the village of Pochepyn, only Ivan Mishchenko and his slightly handicapped son Roman (42) have so far returned to take care of the remaining animals. They sleep in the only loft in the yard that is still watertight. But for fear of mines and unexploded ordnance, they haven’t set a toe in their fields yet. “If you go first, I’ll drive after it,” Roman jokes to his father. “No, after you”, he grins back.
Roaming explosives are also the primary concern at the moment on undamaged farms around Kiev, confirms Anatoli Bojko (62). He and his son lease 400 hectares outside and 200 hectares inside the former battle zone east of the capital. They grow grain, maize, soya, sugar beet and sunflowers for export. The latter have yet to be sown this month. “It is my responsibility to be the first to go out into the field with the tractor,” he says. “I don’t want my son or my staff to risk their lives.”
Bojko says he is not afraid, but he has been putting this task ahead for weeks. “I didn’t tell my wife either.” He has a lot more on his mind. In his yard are mountains of wheat and maize that should have been gone here long ago, but cannot be exported. The large gray sails that protect it from the rain are held in place with stones and car tires. “We have no idea if it won’t rot this way, but it has nowhere to go,” he says.
Ukrainian crop exports depend almost entirely on the Black Sea, where shipping has come to a halt and ports are bombed. The rail connection to the west is only a very limited alternative to the sea route to the south.
Catastrophe
Bojko calculates how his costs have increased in the meantime: the prices for diesel and fertilizer have more than doubled. Repairs are difficult. He plays with a plastic bag with colored rings for his irrigation device that has finally been delivered and clamps a leaflet with information on agricultural technology under the armpit of his green fleece sweater. There are no major investments for the time being. Keeping things going to pay his rent and his staff seems to be the highest achievable for the time being. “We have been through a lot in this country. I have suffered from corruption before. And under legislation that favors large corporations. I have been scammed by so-called investors,” says Bojko. “But this war is a catastrophe.”
Shaking his head, he watches a row of his farm machinery standing still while his farm workers smoke cigarettes. “It’s not just a barbaric invasion, where people are shot in the streets, houses looted and destroyed and fields are battlefields. It’s a stupid conflict between neighbors who depend on each other.” He points to his tractor from Belarus and a truck from Russia. “We did business together before the invasion. Now we’re all going to break.”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 26, 2022
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