Around this time of year, Yaroslav Andrushko would normally be overseeing the sowing of crops on his 1,000-hectare farm in the Vinnytsia region of central Ukraine.
Instead, he swapped his workwear for fatigues, joining the army a day after Russia invaded his country. “Once a farmer, always a farmer,” said Andrushko, the chief executive of a small agriculture company. “But circumstances required us to take up arms.”
As Ukrainians resist Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military machine, the 36-year-old is another example of the resilience shown by so many of his compatriots in protecting their nation’s statehood. Yet Andrushko and farmers like him are also defending a core component of the global food supply chain that’s increasingly in peril.
Ukraine is the world’s largest producer of sunflower oil and ranks among the top six exporters of wheat, corn, chicken and even honey. The money it earns from agriculture — $28 billion last year — is now more vital because of the war effort, and the produce more critical for a world where record prices are raising concerns about food security.
Egypt and Turkey, which rely on Russian and Ukrainian grain, are grappling with skyrocketing inflation. The government in Cairo is considering raising the price of subsidized bread for the first time in four decades. Shortages of sunflower oil in Europe, meanwhile, are forcing suppliers to seek alternatives. Supermarkets across the U.K. are limiting how much cooking oil customers can buy.
Read more: Ukraine Sunflower Oil Crisis Hits Food From Chips to Cookies.
That, in turn, is sending vegetable oil prices soaring as far away as India, where street vendors are steaming food instead of frying it. There’s also increased demand for palm oil, which has been blamed for causing deforestation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russia, itself a key agricultural exporter, is deliberately targeting farmland, placing landmines in fields and destroying equipment and storage facilities. Those claims were supported by European Union Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, who said the bloc would seek to aid Ukraine’s farmers.
Not only is the country increasingly unable to export because transit routes have been severed, but Ukraine needs to keep its more limited supplies of produce to ensure its survival, Ukraine’s agriculture minister said last month.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin echoed the warnings on April 20 after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, who was en route to Washington. “There’s a clear objective to create a food crisis on top of the energy crisis, as well as waging an immoral and unjust war on Ukraine itself,” Martin said.
The Russian military has consistently said it’s not targeting civilian facilities, despite widespread evidence to the contrary. Its limited pullback from Kyiv means that farmers can plant in previously occupied areas like Chernihiv, but harvests of some of Ukraine’s most important crops could still be cut in half this year.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of farming to Ukraine, nicknamed Europe’s breadbasket because of its rich, black, fertile soil that’s ideal for cultivation. Agriculture accounted for more than 10% of Ukraine’s economy and 40% of its sales of exported goods before the war. Farmers are exempted from serving in the military in order to ensure the industry keeps
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