Amid rain and rockets, Ukrainian farmers keep working the soil
The Russian invasion of Ukraine feels far away from the Dergoff farm in the farming town of Tetiiv, as tractors spray fertilizer across freshly planted corn fields on a May sunny day.
Reminders come in the form of sturdy checkpoints in the town’s entrance – where “infiltrators” have been caught trying to smuggle weapons and night goggles – and a warplane cutting across the clear blue sky. Veteran farmhands see their presence in their fields as a matter of necessity and fret about the future.
“What will people eat if we don’t work here?” asks Valentyn Maksymenko, who has been farming for 25 years. “Everyone depends on us. The army. All Ukrainians. Everyone.”
Yet just a couple of miles away in one of the farm’s cavernous warehouses, unsold maize forms golden dunes. War in Ukraine – a major breadbasket thanks to its highly fertile black soil – has the global food system reeling. Russia and Ukraine supplied nearly a
