More than 5 million hectares of land in Ukraine cannot be cultivated due to the war

More than 5 million hectares, or 50,000 square kilometres, of agricultural land are now unusable due to mining, contamination with explosive remnants or ongoing fighting.

Source: Oleksandr Haidu, Chairman of the Agrarian Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament, referring to data from the Oblast Military Administrations (ОMА)

Such lands require examination and may be contaminated. Due to landmines or the presence of dangerous objects in agricultural lands, it is impossible to sow them. 

"For example, winter crops have been sown on an area of only 4.5 million hectares, although last year these crops were sown on 7.7 million hectares. This directly affects the country's food stability. Therefore, today our priority is to create conditions for the mine clearance of land for small and medium-sized farmers who do not have the possibility of doing it on their own," Haidu said.

Taras Vysotskyi, First Deputy Minister of Agricultural Policy, stated that an interagency government working group has already approved a plan for humanitarian mine clearance. It concerns land areas of Mykolaiv, Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts that were under temporary occupation. 

According to preliminary calculations, Vysotskyi said, 30-40% of these territories can be cleared and sown. Other forecasts state that it can be about 50-60%. However, the situation in terms of the spring sowing campaign will be clearer at the end of March. 

Background: More than 1 million hectares of agricultural land remain mined in Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts.

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