The heavy toll of mines on Ukraine’s agriculture

In Ukraine, the efforts by the government and international NGOs to clear mines are falling short of the urgent needs of farmers, who often do the work themselves.

Although 3 million hectares have been declared cleared, including 450,000 that required manual or mechanised intervention, the Defense Ministry’s Mine Action Directorate has reported that a third of Ukrainian lands—more than 14 million hectares—remains potentially contaminated by explosive ordnance. 

In the case of arable land, the exact proportion of mined areas is impossible to determine while hostilities continue. In 2023, Ukrainian officials estimated it might range from 470,000 to 2.6 million hectares. 

“Ukraine has become one of the most polluted countries in the world, and there aren’t enough operators to clean everything,” Ruslan Beregulya, head of the Defense Ministry’s Mine Action Directorate, told Euractiv.

The toll on Ukraine’s economy is significant as agriculture accounts for 10-15% of its GDP and most of its exports. 

For now, Kyiv prioritises demining civil infrastructure, roads, and residential areas over farmland and forests. As a result, some farmers resort to demining themselves to continue their agricultural activities.

This is the case of Ivan, a farmer from Petrivske, a village in the Kharkiv region.

Russian troops occupied Petrivske in February 2022 for five days and planted anti-tank and anti-personnel mines to block Ukrainian advances.

Subsequently, the village became a gray zone between Ukrainian and Russian positions for nine months, until Kyiv’s troops liberated it in September 2022.

Ivan, who stayed there the whole time, wanted to save his 300 hectares of wheat, corn, and buckwheat.

“The Russians had left, the Ukrainian army wasn’t in the village, so I started checking for mines by walking across my fields and then driving my tractor,” Ivan told Euractiv. 

On March 24, 2022, Ivan’s tractor hit a 10-kilogramme Soviet-era anti-tank mine. He survived and returned the next day to move the mine aside with a knife and a rope and free his tractor, which he later managed to fix.

According to the Ministry of Defense, 688 people have been injured by mines or unexploded ordnance, including 298 who died, 20% of whom were farmers.  

Most farmers call the State Emergency Service—the main body responsible for demining—once they find an unexploded ordnance, but some detonate it themselves by throwing a tire at it.

“If I had waited for demining, I wouldn’t be able to work on my fields today as official deminers take months to demine,” Ivan explained. “If you didn’t do it yourself in 2022, you can’t do it now because the grass grew, the earth turned around, and mines and shells are not easily visible anymore.”

Compared to big agricultural conglomerates, which sometimes have their own demining team, farms of less than 250 hectares are the most affected by the mines, said Igor Piddubnyi, a researcher from the Kyiv School of Economics who did a study on the matter.

Small farms often rely solely on the land to make a living and “have less access to finance, less institutional capacity, and less flexibility to move to another region or plot of land in an unaffected area,” Piddubnyi added. 

At their own risk

“For them, waiting for demining is a waste of money as they sometimes rent the land. They go ahead at their own risk,” Ilya Sazonov, head of a demining group at HALO Trust, one of the largest demining NGOs operating in Ukraine, told Euractiv.

Launched in 2016 in Ukraine, HALO Trust is one of the 43 private organisations authorised to clear mines in Ukraine, up from just four before the invasion. “We certify new deminers every week, but only about ten are actively working,” said Beregulya. 

Ilya Sazonov, in front of the field that the organization he works for, Halo Trust, cleared of mines last year. His team is demining the edges of the field now. June 27, 2024 [Clara Marchaud]

To resume work faster, some farmers resort to “gray deminers” on the black market, who offer lower rates. Many of these deminers are former combat engineers but often lack experience with the latest mines. 

With the support of the UN’s food agency FAO, Ukraine launched a program in May to reimburse smallholders for 80% of the demining costs. 

Local government agencies also received demining equipment and training from Western partners as part of Ukraine’s National Mine Action Strategy. The EU and its member states have committed over €645 million for 2022-2027. 

In 2024, the EU handed several state-of-the-art mine-clearing systems to various Ukrainian agencies. With a remote operator, these machines can safely clear up to 4,000 square meters (0.4 hectares) per hour.

“We hope to clear the remnants of war as fast as possible so that internally displaced persons can return to their homes and farmers to their fields,” said Beregulya. “Our goal is for our economy to work and our country to live.”

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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