Ukraine’s Farmers Fight on Two Fronts as War Ravages Rural Life

In Ukraine’s frontline regions like Sumy and Kharkiv, farmers are doubling as soldiers, their land riddled with mines and drones, and rural communities hollowed out by conscription and war, The Gaze reports, citing The Guardian.

Near Sumy in eastern Ukraine, 55-year-old farmer Mykola Mondrayev spends half the week in uniform and the rest tending to his land — all under the constant threat of Russian drones. 

“The Russians aren’t just hitting military objects. They’re hitting farms as well. Farming is at the heart of Ukrainian culture, and that’s what they are trying to destroy,” he says.

Even far from the frontlines, farms face drone attacks, shelling, and mine contamination. Over a quarter of Ukraine’s farmland is now occupied or too dangerous to use. Labour shortages are severe — up to 30% — as conscription drains the workforce, especially from smaller farms.

“There are no workers for the farms. Almost everyone has been conscripted,” says Mykola Panasenko, whose barn and office were hit in two separate drone strikes near Sumy. “Without the farmers, whole villages will die.”

Fellow farmer Andriy Sema shows a photo of a drone shot down on his field. “Every day you hear about one farm or another being hit… I don’t know if I want to carry on farming,” he says. Before the war, Sema had 150 pigs — now he has only poultry and a fraction of the income.

Large agribusinesses like Victoria are struggling too. “Almost every day, there’s shelling. It’s like we have our own combat zone in the fields,” says CEO Serhiy Bondarenko. “If we stopped, the company would not exist.”

Yet the most overlooked victims may be Ukraine’s odnoosibnyky — rural households that supply over a third of the country’s domestic food, including nearly all potatoes. Many are elderly or female-headed and rely on tiny plots. “We are talking about the fabric of Ukrainian society,” says Rein Paulsen of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. “The country’s invisible rural life is under threat.”

Read more on The Gaze: Russia’s War on Ukraine: An Unprecedented Act of Genocide Targeting Ukraine’s National Identity and Existence