Planting season has arrived in Ukraine. Boot marks stamped in the frozen earth have thawed. But the Pavlovych family’s fields remain untouched in a lonely landscape of checkpoints and churches. Over a week ago, the family learned their 25-year-old soldier son, Roman, had been killed near the besieged city of Mariupol. On Tuesday, the father, also named Roman, will leave for the war himself. “The front line is full of our best people. And now they are dying,” said the mother, Maria. In tears, she sat in her son’s bedroom in their warm brick home, his medals and photos spread before her. The Pavlovych family knows a second front line in Russia’s war runs through the farmland here in western Ukraine, far from the daily resistance against the invasion. It is an uphill battle for farmers to feed not only their country but the world. Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, leaving millions across North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia facing the potential loss of access to the affordable supplies they need for bread and noodles. The war has raised the specter of food shortages and political instability in countries reliant on Ukrainian wheat, including Indonesia, Egypt, Yemen and Lebanon. It is unclear how many farmers will be able to plant or tend to their harvests with the war raging, forcing those like Pavlovych to the front lines. And the challenges keep growing. Infrastructure — from ports and roads to farm equipment — is snarled and damaged, meaning critical supplies like fuel are difficult to get and routes for export almost impossible to reach. Fertilizer producers are paralyzed by nearby fighting, and a prolonged winter may disrupt spring yields. “How can we sow under the blows of Russian artillery? How can we sow when the enemy deliberately mines the fields, destroys fuel bases?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a recent address. “We do not know what harvest we will have and whether we’ll be able to export.” An airport not far from the Pavlovych home was bombed in the early days of the war, sending unexploded ordnance into nearby fields now planted with warning signs instead of corn. The thudding sounds of efforts to safely dispose of the ordnance could be heard last week beside the younger Pavlovych’s flower-strewn grave. There is no time to lose, even as families mourn. The northwestern Lviv region near the border with Poland, far from the heart of what is known as Ukraine’s breadbasket in the south, is being asked to plant all the available fields it can, said Ivan Kilgan, head of the regional agricultural association. Still, the region won’t be able to reach its pre-war levels. “We are expecting to produce more than 50 million tons of cereals. Previously, we produced more than 80 million tons. It’s logical. Less land, less harvest,” Kilgan said. Standing in a frigid barn containing more than 1,000 tons of wheat and soy, Kilgan vowed to send tons of flour to feed Ukraine’s army. He’s planting 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) this year, up from 1,200 hectares (around 3,000 acres). And yet he’s short on fertilizer. For the extra production he plans, he needs more than double the 300 tons of fertilizer he has. “If the […]

The post Ukraine’s Other Fight: Growing Food For Itself And The World appeared first on The Yeshiva World.