How war destroys fruitful layers of land in Ukraine
2023.03.01 04:44
How war destroys fruitful layers of land in Ukraine
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – Andrii Povod returned to his grain farm to find it destroyed after Ukraine regained control of Kherson in November. The majority of the wheat was gone, two tractors were missing, and eleven buildings used to store crops and machinery had been bombed and set on fire.
The farm is marred by Russian shelling, and fields are littered with unexploded bombs. However, the less obvious damage to Ukraine’s famedly fertile soil after a year of war may be the most difficult to fix.
When scientists examined soil samples taken from the reclaimed Kharkiv region in the northeast of Ukraine, they discovered that the ground is being polluted by high concentrations of toxins like mercury and arsenic from fuel and munitions.
According to the research that was shared with Reuters, scientists at Ukraine’s Institute for Soil Science and Agrochemistry Research estimated, based on the samples and satellite imagery, that the war has already destroyed at least 10.5 million hectares of agricultural land across Ukraine.
That’s a quarter of the country’s agricultural land, which includes Russian-held territory. Europe’s breadbasket.
“It is a very significant issue for our region. “We cannot reproduce this good soil,” Povod, 27, said as he walked around his farm near Bilozerka in southeast Ukraine, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from one of the war’s front lines, the Dnipro River.
The damage to Europe’s breadbasket, which includes contamination, mines, and destroyed infrastructure, will take decades to repair, according to two dozen experts who spoke with Reuters. These experts also said that global food supplies may suffer for years to come.
The scientists claim that tanks have compressed the earth, making it harder for roots to thrive, and that shelling has also disrupted the delicate ecosystems of microorganisms that transform soil materials into crop nutrients like nitrogen.
According to some experts, some areas are so mined and physically altered by trenches and craters that, like some World War I battlefields, they may never produce crops again.
Prior to the war, Ukraine was the fifth-largest wheat seller and fourth-largest corn exporter in the world. It was also a key supplier to grain-importing nations in Africa and the Middle East.
Global grain prices increased as a result of Russia’s invasion a year ago, when the Black Sea ports that normally transport Ukraine’s harvest closed, escalating inflation rates worldwide.
According to Reuters, the director of the Soil Institute, Sviatoslav Baliuk, the war damage could reduce Ukraine’s potential grain harvest by 10 to 20 million tonnes per year, or up to a third of its pre-war output of 60 to 89 million tonnes.
The amount of land farmers plant, the effects of climate change, the use of fertilizers, and the adoption of new farming technology are all important factors in determining production levels.
The soil contamination and potential long-term damage to the industry were not addressed by the Ukraine’s agriculture ministry.
In addition to the destruction of irrigation canals, crop silos, and port terminals, Ukrainian farmers are contending with unexploded shells in numerous fields.
The chief executive of Nibulon, one of the largest grain producers in Ukraine, Andriy Vadaturskyi, estimates that demining alone will take 30 years and that urgent financial assistance is required to keep Ukrainian farmers in business.
Vadaturskyi stated in an interview, “Today, there is a problem of high prices, but the food is available.” However, if no solution is found, tomorrow or in a year, there may be a food shortage.”
The institute discovered that chernozem, or the most fertile soil in Ukraine, has suffered the most. Chernozem extends as deep as 1.5 meters into the ground and is richer in nutrients like humus, phosphorus, and nitrogen than other soils.
Baliuk of the institute said that the damage from the war could cause an alarming loss of fertility.
According to the Institute’s research, increased toxicity and a decrease in the diversity of microorganisms, for instance, have already reduced the energy that corn seeds can generate to sprout by approximately 26%, resulting in lower yields.
The removal of all mines and the restoration of Ukraine’s soil to its former health would, according to a working group of soil scientists established by the Ukrainian government, cost $15 billion.
According to Baliuk, that restoration can take as little as three years or more than 200, depending on the type of damage.
If research on land damage during World War I is any indication, some areas will never recover.
In 2006, American academics Joseph Hupy and Randall Schaetzl came up with the term “bombturbation” to describe the effects of war on soil. They wrote that among the unseen damage, bomb breaches in bedrock or soil layers can alter the depth of the water table, denying vegetation a shallow water source.
According to a 2008 paper by Remi de Matos-Machado and Hupy, some pre-war grain fields and pastures near Verdun, France, have been uncultivated for more than a century due to craters and unexploded shells.
According to Hupy, who spoke with Reuters, topographic changes and contamination on some arable land in Ukraine mean that it may never be used again for crop production. According to Hupy, significant earthmoving and massive demining will be required in a lot of other fields to level the ground.
Naomi Rintoul-Hynes, a senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University who teaches soil science and environmental management, has studied soil contamination from World War I and worries that the conflict in Ukraine is doing the same kind of damage that can’t be fixed.
She stated, “It is of the utmost importance that we understand how terrible the situation is as it stands.”
Lead, for instance, has a half-life of at least 700 years, which means that its concentration in the soil may not be half as low for that long. According to Rintoul-Hynes, such toxins can build up in such a way in the plants that grow there that it could affect human health.
Although the war in Ukraine has only been going on for a year, unlike World War I, which lasted four years, lead is still a crucial component of many modern weapons, according to Rintoul-Hynes.
Michael Tirre, Europe program manager for the U.S. State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal, stated that it will likely take decades to remove mines and other unexploded ordnance, which cover 26% of Ukraine’s land, as stated by the government.
Craters and former Russian bunkers dot Andrii Pastushenko’s dairy farm in southeastern Ukraine, where he grows sunflowers and cattle feed.
He claimed that Russian forces regularly shell his farm from across the Dnipro River, blowing new holes in his fields and scattering unexploded ordnance, even though Ukraine regained control of the area in November.
Pastushenko, 39, stated, “We need many months to clear everything and continue working, maybe years.” We are in the first line of fire, so there is no help. As long as this is a war zone, no one will assist.”
According to Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, a spokesperson for the Kherson Regional Military Administration, there aren’t enough specialists in the area to work on demining farms right now.
According to Mykhailo Rizak, Nibulon’s deputy director, who spoke with Reuters, the grain company Nibulon has established a small division to demine its land in southern Ukraine, a process that is anticipated to take decades.
Rizak stated, “This is a very serious issue for Nibulon.”
The agricultural sector of Ukraine, which contributed 10% of the country’s gross domestic product prior to the war, faces yet another long-term issue. The Kyiv School of Economics estimated the damage to roads, railways, and other infrastructure at $35.3 billion in October.
According to Caitlin Welsh, director of global food security at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, “people think the food crisis will be solved as soon as peace is achieved.” It will take a very long time to just fix the infrastructure in Ukraine.
According to Dmitry Skornyakov, chief executive of HarvEast, a significant Ukrainian farming company, farmers’ finances are also in a desperate state.
According to Skornyakov, while many farmers are able to make it through this year on the earnings from a record-breaking year just before the war, up to half of them will face severe financial difficulties if the conflict continues into 2024.
“The future is currently from gray to dark.”
