Ukraine has lost “quarter of its farmland” due to Russian invasion | Abroad

“Despite the loss of 25 percent of agricultural land, the crops sown this year are more than sufficient to meet the needs” of the Ukrainian population, Deputy Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotsky said at a news conference.

According to Vysotsky, food consumption has also fallen as a result of mass displacement and migration from the country.

More than seven million Ukrainians are internally displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR). Another 7.3 million have fled abroad, more than half of them to Poland.

Ukrainian farmers have been relatively successful in preparing for sowing before the start of the war, the deputy minister said. “By February, Ukraine had already imported about 70 percent of the required fertilizers, 60 percent of the crop protection products and a third of the fuel needed for sowing.”

However, the Russian occupation of several Ukrainian regions and the grain blockade by the Russian Black Sea Fleet have forced Ukrainian farmers to “change what they sow and how much,” Vysotski said.

Before the war, Ukraine had more than 30 million hectares of farmland according to the international NGO World Data Center Ukraine.

The effects of the Russian invasion on the Ukrainian domestic market appear limited, Vysostsky said, but the inability to export the cultivated grain abroad will lead to a “hurricane of famines,” according to the UN.

“Currently, between 20 and 25 million tons of grain is blocked and that figure could rise to 70-75 million tons this fall,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on June 6.

The Russo-Ukrainian conflict pits two grain superpowers against each other – Russia and Ukraine together account for 30 percent of the world’s wheat exports. It has led to a sharp rise in grain and oil prices, which are higher than prices during the Arab Spring of 2011 and the “food riots” of 2008.