For Oleksandr Hordiyenko, a farmer in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, this spring is shaping up badly: Frost during an April cold snap damaged half the crops he had already sown, and rains that fell across much of the country steered clear of his land.
Then there's another kind of problem.
"Last week a tractor blew up -- it hit a mine," Hordiyenko told RFE/RL's News of Azov . "That field has been cultivated since last year, but still something happened, something was stirred up."
Farmers across Ukraine face some of the same risk factors that can make growing crops a gamble worldwide, such as fickle weather, fluctuating prices, and shifting state regulations.
Particularly in regions near the front, they also have to deal with the daily dangers posed by Russia's war against Ukraine.
Nobody died in the tractor blast, Hordiyenko said, but "there's another problem -- drones fly in, people get killed."
'Risks End Badly'
Hordiyenko's farm is in the Beryslav district on the Ukrainian-held right bank of the Dnieper River, which essentially forms the front line in the Kherson region as it flows southwest to the Black Sea. Like the city of Kherson, Beryslav and the surrounding district were occupied by Russian forces near the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 but were liberated in a Ukrainian counteroffensive that autumn.
Russian forces on the Dnieper's left bank continue to target Ukrainians across the river, often using drones that drop deadly mines and grenades.
"It's really unrealistic to go out [into the fields] these days without a jammer, without a 10-shot rifle to shoot down drones, because it's a risk," said Hordiyenko, who heads a regional association of farmers. "And risks end very badly…practice has shown."
Farmers in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region, with whom he said he had spoken by phone, have other problems that are specific to their circumstances.
"They have to give away their grain for next to nothing, crop-protection products are expensive and low-quality, and there's a shortage of equipment," Hordiyenko said. "As for the weather, the situation is the same: frosts and drought."
RFE/RL was unable to verify the accuracy of his remarks about farming in Russian-occupied areas.
Paying The Price
For farmers in Ukraine, the physical danger posed by Russian attacks is not the only problem posed by the Russian invasion.
The state does not compensate farmers for crop losses caused by bad weather, and priority of defense spending means the government is unlikely to introduce a system of state insurance that is sorely needed, said Denys Marchuk, head of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council. In the meantime, consumers shoulder a portion of those losses.
"There is a lack of sufficient supply within Ukraine for certain crops," Marchuk said. "These shortages will increase the price of what is already on store shelves."
Ukraine's Ministry of Agrarian Policy said the state has offered incentives for farmers in frontline regions, such as a subsidy of up to 2,000 hryvnyas ($48) per hectare of cultivated land last year and as much as 8,000 hryvnyas ($192) per hectare for farms cultivating up to 120 hectares on land retaken after being occupied by Russian forces.
Few farms in the Kherson region fall into that category, Hordiyenko said.
He believes that given the risks of attack and the fact that populations have been depleted by the Russian invasion, agricultural enterprises in regions that straddle the front line should receive more preferential treatment from the state, such as tax breaks and lower quotas when it comes to mobilization for the war.
"In Kherson, we are in the same position as the other regions" in terms of taxes and mobilization quotas, Hordiyenko said. "But you see, 60 percent of the people in the Kherson region have left -- they're not here."
