Less than 30 kilometers from the front line in southeastern Ukraine, farmers whose businesses survived Russian missiles fear another blow to their livelihoods due to drastically low crop prices. Mykola, a 63-year-old farmer from the Dnipropetrovsk region, told Reuters on Tuesday that he had to store his harvest in a facility that had been hit by missiles because he cannot afford to repair it if it is hit again. However, he is in no rush to sell. He stated that the price of the harvest is "unacceptable for farmers. We will store it and see what happens. Repairing the storage requires money, and it is not realistic to repair it given the current price of our grains."
The price that Ukrainian farmers receive from traders for their crops has dropped to extremely low levels in July after Moscow withdrew from a UN-brokered agreement that allowed for the safe export of agricultural products from Ukraine via the Black Sea. With this route closed, farmers across Ukraine, one of the largest producers of wheat and sunflower in the world, are facing a losing battle to export their crops by land and through rivers, which can only accommodate a fraction of normal export volumes.
Farmers in Velykomykhailivka must reconcile their concerns about collapsing prices and the difficulty of exporting with the possibility of more Russian missiles falling on their farms. Valery Krut (60) sadly reflected on his business, which included 200 tons of grain and 14 vehicles destroyed by a missile attack last year, saying, "It took more than 20 years to build this. It was destroyed in one day." He added, "The question is: to give up everything or perhaps try to hold on? We will not make any profit this year under this stock and crop prices."
