Kyiv | Reuters – Ukraine’s food exports by sea and river totalled 4.13 million metric tons in August, down from 4.25 million tons in July, agriculture ministry data showed on Friday. That included 2.18 million tons of wheat, 553,732 tons of corn and 454,641 tons of barley, the data showed. Ukraine’s UGA grain traders union […] Read more
Ukraine’s maritime food exports fall to 4.13 mln T in August
Ukraine boosts grain exports despite intensified Russian attacks
Kyiv/London | Reuters – Ukraine is scrambling to ship as much grain as it can this summer, taking advantage of military gains it has made in the Black Sea area to boost exports even as Russia has attacked its ports. Ukraine is a major global wheat and corn grower and before Russia’s invasion in 2022 […] Read more
From Ukraine: On the home front
Polina Zhovtyak keeps the home fires burning as her husband and daughter serve in the Ukrainian army
Reading Time: 5 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – After more than two years of all-out war, I have heard many incredible stories of people and how they cope, survive and even thrive. At times I think I will be surprised by nothing. In some parts of the country, in relatively peaceful regions, some live much as they did before the […] Read more
What is war fatigue?
If the West is 'tired' of the war in Ukraine, consider the reality of Ukrainians
As we approached the end of December, my mood, like that of most Ukrainians, was not at all Christmassy. The heroic achievement of 2022, when our lives hung in the balance and our defenders managed to repel the enemy, was replaced by the bloody routine of 2023.
Civilian cars and ancient farm machinery
Ukraine’s history of making do pays off in wartime as farmers support the war
Reading Time: 5 minutes Ukraine’s agriculture is diverse and so is the equipment on Ukrainian farms. Near my town, a German-made NEXAT transformer unit is working in the fields and is one of few in the world. It’s a massive all-in-one machine that handles every step in crop production: spring cultivation, seeding, crop protection and harvesting. While this is […] Read more
From Olds to the front lines of Ukraine
College instructor splits time between precision agriculture education in Canada and supporting troops in his home country
Reading Time: 3 minutes Yevgen Mykhaylichenko is trying to bring more autonomous systems to Canadian agriculture, and he’s using knowledge acquired abroad to do it. Splitting his time between academia and the Ukrainian front line, the Ukrainian professor and Olds College technology integration specialist works with a wide range of digital technologies and hardware. On frequent visits to Ukraine, […] Read more
From Ukraine to Calgary
Reading Time: 2 minutes Glacier FarmMedia – Daryna Putintseva is a Ukrainian digital marketing specialist working for Canadian communications agency WS. Now living in Calgary, she develops media, news content and marketing strategies for a range of clients in both primary agriculture and the food and beverage industry, such as FCL and Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers program. Putintseva came […] Read more
Opinion: War is expensive both on and off the battlefield
Big financial costs, big human costs, but also big agribusiness profits
Reading Time: 2 minutes Union general William T. Sherman once famously said, “War is hell.” However you describe it, war is expensive. For some, it’s extremely profitable, too. Shooting wars aren’t the only type of warfare that are costly, deadly and often without a winner. In January 2022, the International Monetary Fund estimated the total cost of the COVID-19 […] Read more
The winter corn harvest symbolizes Ukrainian endurance
The challenges faced by farmers never end, but they always find a way around them
Reading Time: 4 minutes Have you ever seen combines in the middle of January going into a field? And behind them huge disc harrows? It’s no wonder that this year Ukrainian farmers use some warm days in the middle of winter to harvest corn. After almost a year of war, thousands of combine harvesters were destroyed or stolen by […] Read more
‘Everything was destroyed:’ One farmer’s tale of the Russia invasion
His farm and village are in ruins, but Yuriy Vovchenko’s focus is on somehow planting a crop next spring
Reading Time: 5 minutes EDITOR’S NOTE: this story contains graphic content. Glacier FarmMedia – Ukrainian farmer Yuriy Vovchenko survived the Russian occupation and constant shelling for eight months, but his life has changed immeasurably. I have known him for many years, and since the invasion I have wanted to phone him many times but each time I dialled, I […] Read more