Food sovereignty and solidarity initiatives in rural Ukraine during the war

ABSTRACT

This article examines coping strategies and solidarity initiatives in rural Ukraine during the full-scale war with Russia. Based on primary qualitative data conducted remotely, it explores the ability of different food producers to farm in military conditions, their mutual help and reciprocity. The article also discusses farmers’ mundane patriotism, the influx of internally displaced persons to the countryside, charitable initiatives of agribusiness, and local conflicts and tensions. It argues that the networks and collective action that emerged during the war accelerated the development of a vibrant rural civil society needed to promote peasant rights and endorse food sovereignty in Ukraine.

KEYWORDS:

• Food sovereignty
• small farms
• solidarity
• Ukraine
• war

Introduction

Ukraine is often called the ‘breadbasket of Europe’ or the ‘breadbasket of the world’ as it boasts some of the most fertile land on Earth, called ‘chornozem’ [black soil], and it is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has seriously threatened Ukrainian and global food security. War-related destruction of agricultural facilities and infrastructure, Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea ports, its seizure of Ukrainian grain from the temporarily occupied territories, and burnings of agricultural fields near the zones of active hostilities have drastically undermined Ukraine’s agricultural capacity. A number of assessments have been made to evaluate the impact of the war on Ukrainian agricultural production and export (Neiter, Stolnikovych, and Niv'evskyi 2022; Wengle and Dankevych 2022). However, little is known about the situation on the ground. This article is a pilot study of farming practices and grassroots initiatives that took place in rural Ukraine in the first year of the full-scale war with Russia.¹ Based on primary qualitative data conducted remotely (see next section), I investigate how different food producers – both large and small – deal with the hazards and uncertainties of the war, and how their coping strategies influence the societal discourse and practices of food sovereignty in Ukraine.

This article contributes to the analysis of farming practices in times of extreme instability, brought by violent conflicts, wars or natural disasters (the term ‘extreme instability’ is borrowed from Durkheim [1984]). Recent studies have demonstrated that localised food systems are more resilient to global shocks and disturbances, as they do not depend on external resources and international trade (Béné 2020; Zerbian, Adams, and Wilson 2022). However, research on food sovereignty during major crises remains limited. This study explores the forms and trajectories that food sovereignty takes in a military context. It contributes to the discussion on sustainable and crisis-proof food systems in three ways:

First, it examines which mode of production is more resilient during extreme instability. The Ukrainian agrarian structure is characterised by the coexistence of large agribusinesses with small farms.² Agribusinesses specialise in the industrial production of monocultures, primarily grain for export, while small farms operate in the domestic market and represent localised food systems. Until now, the state agri-food policy has been oriented on supporting industrial agriculture and largely neglected smallholders. By studying coping strategies of rural households [in Ukrainian: osobyste selyanske hospodarstva] and more commercially-oriented family farmers [in Ukrainian: fermerske hospodarstva] I demonstrate that small farms are more resilient in wartime and can rebound and recover much faster than large holdings.

Second, I study the impact of the war on solidarity initiatives and collective action in rural communities in Ukraine, which are necessary to promote peasant rights and strengthen food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is understood here as a social imaginary, a practice and a political project that endorse the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems (see Nyéléni [2007] for a precise definition of food sovereignty). Peasant rights are essential for food sovereignty, they imply the rights of all rural populations to land, seeds, biodiversity and adequate incomes with an emphasis on civil and social rights (UN Declaration on Peasant Rights 2018). Until recently, food sovereignty in Ukraine was not accompanied by public discourse and social mobilisation. It was rather an instance of what Visser et al. (2015) called ‘quiet food sovereignty’ or ‘food sovereignty without a movement’. In this study, I explore how the war accelerated the transformation of the ‘quiet’ form of food sovereignty into a ‘vocal’ one.

Third, I engage in the debates on sustainable alternatives to the globalised neoliberal agri-food system. Advocates for food sovereignty argue that the current global crises – triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine – have demonstrated the unsustainability and fragility of globalised neoliberal agriculture. They argue that the time has come to transform the dominant agricultural model into a more sustainable one, which is based on local food production and consumption that are carried out in ecologically sound ways with respect to local customs and traditions (La Via Campesina 2022). I study how the Ukrainian network for food sovereignty engages with these debates, and what strategies it follows to challenge the existing agri-food system and promote food sovereignty.

The article is structured as follows. The next section presents the methodology of this study. It is followed by the background section about the state of Ukrainian agriculture before the war and a discussion on the ‘quiet’ food sovereignty of Ukraine. The theoretical framework is described afterwards. The consequent five sections present the empirical findings. The final section discusses the results of the study.

Methods and data: conducting research in a military context

This study is based on primary qualitative data collected remotely in Ukraine during June-July 2022. I followed the ethical and methodological guidelines for doing ‘distanced research’ in conflict-affected settings (Douedari et al. 2021; Mwambari, Purdeková, and Bisoka 2021). I personally knew most of the informants and worked with them during my previous research in Ukraine. A total of 10 semi-structured in-depth interviews (approx. one hour each) were conducted with: two agricultural experts, two civil society activists, two farmers, one representative of a farmer’s union, one employee at a large agricultural enterprise, two internally displaced persons from urban areas who found asylum in the countryside. The interview data were complemented by numerous chats, calls and emails with my relatives and friends in Zhytomyr (central Ukraine), as well as interactions with Ukrainian refugees in Stockholm.

Prior to each interview, the informant’s consent³ was obtained orally and recorded together with the subsequent interview using MS Teams or by telephone using a voice recorder. The interview guide contained questions about the impact of the war on rural areas, farm strategies and solidarity initiatives. Emotionally sensitive questions were avoided, following the recommendations by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (2022). I asked my informants to focus mainly on the situation in their village, district, region, so that they share first-hand information and do not repeat the news from the Internet and social media. Agricultural experts were also interviewed about the general situation in Ukrainian agriculture.

Most of my informants are based in the Kyiv or Zhytomyr regions. I repeatedly refer to the Zhytomyr region in the empirical sections, as I was able to obtain more first-hand data about this area due to my personal and professional connections (I was born and spent childhood in Zhytomyr and, later, conducted field research in the region). Zhytomyr is an important agricultural region, characterised by the coexistence of a large agro-industrial complex with family farms (out of 1,200 agricultural enterprises, 590 were private farms) that specialise in both crop production and animal husbandry. One of the largest grain elevators is located here. At the time of writing this article, there was no large-scale long-term occupation of the region (seven villages were occupied by the Russian army during late March – early April 2022), and there was no intensive shelling of the farm fields. The Zhytomyr region borders the Kyiv region and is used as a logistics centre for humanitarian aid and military mobilisation, and, therefore, is often a target for the Russian army. The region also borders Belarus, from where most of the missile strikes are currently launched. Air attack signals are heard in Zhytomyr twice a day. Missiles hit the region sporadically, causing the destruction of infrastructure and human casualties.

I tried to abstain from collecting secondary data related to the war, because it is difficult to control its reliability and impartiality (Obaid and Gul 2016). However, some secondary data were used in this article, but solely to support or generalise the primary data. All secondary data were cross-checked for consistency with data from other sources. I used only the most credible sources, such as Ukrainian local government reports and independent analytical and news platforms. Russian-language sources have been avoided.

The final draft of this article was sent to and discussed with the interviewed agricultural experts to avoid any misinterpretations or inaccuracies on my part.

Ukrainian agriculture before the war and ‘quiet’ food sovereignty

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine launched a land reform aimed at breaking down former collective farm enterprises (kolkhozy and sovkhozy) and distributing their lands to the rural population for commercial family farming. However, the majority of land recipients were unable to establish farms, as all the necessary factors complementary to land (capital, know-how, upstream and downstream markets, the rule of law) disappeared with the breakdown of the collectives. Only a few thousand private farms were created then. The former collective land was first accumulated by the rural elite, and then by domestic oligarchs and foreign investors, who restored large-scale industrial agriculture, albeit in a neoliberal guise (Visser and Spoor 2011; Plank 2013). Due to a moratorium on land sales (introduced by the government in 2001), large agribusinesses do not own farmland, but lease it from the rural population (usually on terms that are not in favour of the latter⁴).

Today, the Ukrainian agrarian structure is characterised by the coexistence of large industrial agribusiness with a wide variety of small farms. Agribusiness is largely represented by the so-called ‘agroholdings’ – vertically and horizontally integrated groups of affiliated agroenterprises – that specialise in monocrop export-oriented agriculture (predominantly grain and oilseeds) and monopolise the entire agricultural value chain (Kuns and Visser 2016). Agribusiness controls approximately 55% of arable land in Ukraine and produces half of the gross domestic agricultural product. The other half is produced by 48.6 thousand family farms (8.7%) and 2.5 million rural households (41.5%), which cultivate 15% and 30% of farmland respectively (the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine 2022).

The majority of family farmers specialise in grain and oilseeds production and have to compete with large agroholdings for land and market shares (see Mamonova [2015] on ‘competitive exclusion’ of farmers). Meanwhile, most rural households cultivate land plots around their houses and produce staple foods for family consumption and eventual sale in local markets. Some rural households are more commercially oriented (the so-called odnoosibnyky) and are similar to family farms⁵, while others produce only to meet their family needs (Mamonova 2015). Before the war, rural households produced 99% of potatoes, 89% of vegetables, 78% of milk, 74% of beef and 35% of pork produced in the country (Nivyevskyi, Yavorskyi, and Donchenko 2021).

Despite phenomenal productivity and great contribution to the domestic food supply, the role of rural households – together with small family farms – is largely overlooked in public and political debates (Borodina 2021; Nivyevskyi, Yavorskyi, and Donchenko 2021). Due to a socialist legacy of industrial agriculture, household farming is perceived as a ‘backward’ and ‘inefficient’ coping strategy, which is doomed to disappear in the nearest future (Mamonova 2018). The belief that ‘big is beautiful’ has been dominating the governmental discourse and policies for many years, making the large agroholdings the primary beneficiaries of state support for agricultural development.⁶ The disparaging attitude towards household farming was also held by their practitioners, who did not attach much importance to their activities, perceiving them as subsidiary of industrial agriculture (Mamonova 2015).

Meanwhile, as research suggested, post-socialist household farming is as efficient as a large agribusiness, but is more resilient and environmentally sustainable, it fosters community networks and social capital, and may represent a sustainable alternative to the neoliberal agricultural model (Visser et al. 2015; Smith and Jehlicka 2013). In this regard, Ukrainian smallholder farming has much in common with food sovereignty, but it is not accompanied by an associated discourse and mobilisation. People grow their healthy and culturally appropriate food as part of their daily routine and do not attach much importance to this process, considering it to be the natural order of things. Visser et al. (2015) called this type of food sovereignty ‘quiet food sovereignty’ or ‘food sovereignty without a movement’.

The main obstacles to transforming ‘quiet’ food sovereignty into a more ‘vocal’ form are: (1) the lack of societal recognition of the important role of smallholder farming and (2) farmers’ aversion to collective action and mobilisation (Visser et al. 2015). The first obstacle started to change after 2014. The Euromaidan revolution of 2014 and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by Russia and the war in the Donbas region have drastically transformed the Ukrainian national orientation and cultural identity. In my study of patriotism and food sovereignty in post-Euromaidan Ukraine (Mamonova 2018), I revealed that the rise of Ukrainian national identity and patriotism during the geopolitical conflict with Russia brought about a change in the social imaginary of traditional small-scale farming. It is no longer portrayed as a ‘backward’ relic of the Soviet past or a subsidiary to large agroholdings. More and more people discuss smallholder farming as a sustainable alternative to industrial agriculture, which could feed Ukraine (and Europe) with ecological and healthy food. The detected change in the social imaginary of farming was the first step toward enhancing food sovereignty in Ukraine. However, the second obstacle to the emergence of an overt movement for food sovereignty – namely, the lack of mobilisation and solidarity initiatives – was still present in rural Ukraine. Due to socialist legacies of forced collectivisation and collective farming, rural society developed distrust towards collective endeavours and lacks the experience of grassroots collective action (De Master 2013).

So far, small farms and large agroholdings have coexisted side by side in what is often called the ‘coexistence scenario’ advocated by neoliberal economists (World Bank 2010). Instead of striving for independence, rural households resigned themselves to their subordinate position and benefited from receiving payments (often in kind) from agribusiness renting their land (Kuns 2017). Since agribusiness controls the entire agri-food value chain, there is no suitable environment for the development of commercial family farming. Nevertheless, family farmers manage to survive and operate in Ukraine, and, as my previous research has shown, were the first who start talking about peasant rights and stood up in opposition to corporate agriculture (Mamonova 2018).

Localised food systems in military contexts

Wars and armed conflicts cause the destruction of rural infrastructure, the loss of livestock, the widespread use of land mines, and the population movements, which lead to long-term food security problems (Teodosijevic 2003). In such circumstances, the resilience of food systems is critical to the survival of affected communities. Studies on household resilience in the context of a food security crisis have demonstrated that localised food systems are more resilient and autonomous, as they do not depend on external resources and international trade (Béné 2020; Ansah, Gardebroek, and Ihle 2019). Local production, distribution and consumption are carried out through informal networks and involve reciprocity and mutual help, which increase the ability of households and communities to adapt and transform in the face of adverse events (Zerbian, Adams, and Wilson 2022).

Extreme instability – caused by war or military conflict – forces members of the community to make concessions to each other and share the responsibility, called social solidarity, in order to normalise chaotic situations and restore stability (Durkheim 1984). This may trigger button-up social actions that were not present in normal settings. In her study of self-organisation and food sovereignty in war-torn Syria, Jasim (2019) demonstrated how the conditions of war and ensuing food shortages force communities to work in drastically different ways, refocusing their efforts − beyond immediate survival − on the restoration of dignity, which entails taking control over communities’ food production and pursuing food sovereignty.

The ways, in which food producers and providers respond to major disruptions, may bring about the collective rethinking of existing relationships in agriculture and the questioning of the mainstream models of food provisioning, as demonstrated by Zerbian, Adams, and Wilson (2022) on the example of the Covid-19 pandemic. Food aid organisations and national governments have frequently been presented as supporting short-term strategies that concentrate on emergency patchwork and sacrificing long-term solutions. Meanwhile, grassroots solidarity initiatives within localised food systems are able to develop more sustainable structural solutions, which could challenge conventional food systems (Zerbian, Adams, and Wilson 2022).

Farming in a military context performs more functions than just meeting nutritional needs. It could be a ‘weapon of the weak’, as suggested by Wendler (2018) in her study of Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank. While for many Palestinians, farming is a coping strategy, for some it is a non-violent practice of resistance against the Israeli occupation. Wendler (2018) observed a group of farmers who pursued independent and self-sufficient farming, thereby, resisting the control of and dependency on Israel. Some of the farms are located in the hardest environments of the West Bank and function as a symbol of hope for Palestinians, demonstrating their visibility on the other side of the wall.

Farming, as a symbol of hope and a morale-boosting activity, was also practised by urban and suburban populations in several Western countries⁷ during World War I and World War II. Then, governments encouraged people to plant the so-called ‘Victory Gardens’ not only to supplement peoples’ rations, but also to boost patriotism and solidarity among the growers, and to help lower the price of vegetables needed to feed the army (Tung, Rose-Redwood, and Cloutier 2022). Similar initiatives emerge today in response to major crises (see Music et al. [2021] on the pandemic victory gardens).

The relationship between food producers’ patriotism and food sovereignty in post-Euromaidan Ukraine was the subject of my previous study (Mamonova 2018). I identified a number of similarities between patriotism and food sovereignty. They both represent a societal defensive mechanism: food sovereignty is aimed at protecting local food systems, while patriotism makes people prone to support and protect a native place and a way of life. Furthermore, patriotism and food sovereignty similarly prioritise traditional cultures and practices that (re)connect native identity with food identity. They also imply collective efforts and feelings of responsibility for a better (more democratic) future of their country. I suggested that the increased patriotism of food producers contributes to the development of discourses and practices of food sovereignty in Ukraine.

While there is no universal response of rural communities to war and military destructions, nor are there universal forms of food sovereignty in such a context, the extreme instability accelerates grassroots solidarity initiatives and creates ‘openings for contestations’ (Tarrow 1998) that allow to challenge the current neoliberal agri-food model. These openings are currently used by food sovereignty movements to call for the transformation of neoliberal agriculture into a more sustainable and crisis-proof local farming model (La Via Campesina 2022).

Impact of the war on Ukrainian agriculture

In addition to Russia’s blocking the Black Sea ports, destroying infrastructure, and seizing grain from the temporarily occupied territories, Russian missiles often target agricultural facilities (see the satellite images of farm destructions provided by the Center for Strategic and International Studies 2022). In the Zhytomyr region, during air raids, the largest pig farm LLC Agrocompany ‘Dubovyy Hay’ was bombed and the largest grain elevator LLC ‘Polissia’ (a subsidiary of the agroholding UkrLandFarming) was partially destroyed.

The war has caused a serious shortage of farm inputs: fertilisers, seeds, and fuel. The shortage of fuel was among the most serious problems. With the outbreak of war, fuel supplies from Russia and Belarus were terminated (in Zhytomyr, all the fuel was from Belarus). The remaining fuel in Ukraine was the target of Russian missile attacks. In the Zhytomyr region, air strikes destroyed four fuel depots, resulting in a ‘massive explosion with fire and black smoke covering the entire sky’, as Zhytomyr resident Tetiana Shuliarenko described [1]. Diesel fuel has become especially scarce and very important in wartime, as military trucks and tanks run on diesel fuel. It is also the main fuel for tractors and agricultural machinery. To ‘help their country fight the enemy, farmers donated (often the last fuel they had) to the needs of the Ukrainian army’ – said Mykola Stryzhak, the honorary president of the Association of Farmers and Private Landowners of Ukraine [2].

While many women and children have left the country (according to the UN Refugee Agency [2022], more than 14 million people have fled Ukraine since the beginning of the war) or moved to its western regions, many men have been conscripted into the army. The first to be called to the front were tractor and combiner drivers, mechanics, and machine operators. Consequently, agricultural enterprises faced serious labour shortages. ‘In our case, they mobilised the head of the farm, a combine operator, a tractor driver. Only an accountant and a locksmith remained’, – said Natalya Bragina, the farmer’s wife and co-founder of the private farm ‘Tetis’ in the village of Maiorivka, Mykolaiv region [3].

In areas of active hostilities, shells fall on the farmland, making agricultural activities life-threatening and destroying fertile soils. There were no active battles in the Zhytomyr region, however, when the Russian army left the territory, it mined about two percent of farmland. This was done not against the farmers, but to prevent the Ukrainian army from passing through, as suggested by Vitalii Dankevych – professor at the Zhytomyr National Agroecological University [4]. According to the Ukrainian analytical and news agency Agroportal (2022a), about 7–10 percent of farmland was mined in Ukraine. Ukrainian sapper brigades had been working days and nights to clear the fields from mines. In Zhytomyr, almost all fields have now been demined, except those located on the border with Belarus. Due to the heavy workload of professional sappers, local villagers became volunteers to ‘survey hectare by hectare. Explosive objects were marked with red pegs. They kept in touch with sappers, sent them photos and geolocation. The sappers just had to come and clear mine’ (interview with Ilya Potapenko, director of the private agricultural enterprise ‘Makarov-Agrobud’[5]).

Despite the tremendous difficulties and life-threatening conditions, the majority of Ukrainian land was cultivated and the crops were harvested (interview with Mykola Stryzhak [2], confirmed by Vitalii Dankevych [4]). Due to the inability to sell their products abroad, many food producers, who previously produced wheat, sunflower oil and corn for export, began to grow buckwheat, peas, barley and vegetables for the domestic market. However, not everyone was able to adapt, and for some companies it became the last agricultural season. For example, in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, 60 percent of agricultural enterprises of all types ceased their activities (note: this could also be due to their refusal to obey the new government), in other regions many agricultural enterprises operate at a loss, and some go bankrupt (Agroportal 2022b). Large agroholdings are among those experiencing the greatest difficulties, as argued by professor Olena Borodina from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine [6]. She explained:

The large agroholdings model has collapsed as a colossus with feet of clay.⁸ When the logistics chains were broken, even those agroholdings, which lands were outside the areas of active hostilities, were unable to cultivate their lands. Their supply chains were destroyed. They store pesticides and seeds in warehouses near Kyiv, they have cars and tractors in another place. Their workforce is a travelling brigade – they do not hire the local population, but move their teams of professional machine operators from one region to another. When the war began, they were unable to carry on with their business, because they could not manage the logistics. The last point in this was the blocking of ports and the inability to sell their products. […] At the same time, small farmers were quite flexible and mobile. […] They used horse-drawn transport, manual labour, they shared fuel, if they had it. So, despite everything, farmers managed to plough their fields and sow.

The phenomenal ability of small farmers to cultivate their land was also mentioned by Vitalii Dankevych [4]: ‘Small farmers try to cultivate every piece of land, even where they did not cultivate before […] They grow everything that can feed them and their families in the coming winter, which will be a difficult winter’. Farming as a survival strategy is practised by various socioeconomic groups in both rural and urban areas. Tetiana Shuliarenko [1] used to work as a nurse in the Zhytomyr maternity hospital, before it was partially damaged by shelling aimed at a nearby administrative building. When the war began, she and her family moved to their dacha [summer house] outside the city:

Now almost everyone grows something on lands near houses or dachas. Potatoes, carrots, beets. People have to rely only on themselves. In the beginning, when bombs were falling, no one thought about farming. Just to survive. But then, little by little, all these bombs, the war became a new norm. [Food] prices are rising as crazy! […] So, we bought five small chicks. It was dad’s idea. My brother helped empty the shed where our grandparents kept chickens. Now we have our chickens there.

The Ukrainian government is promoting the people’s farming and food-self production to help the population overcome food shortages and rising food prices. Several projects have been initiated, among which ‘Sady Peremohy’ [Victory Gardens] is the most successful (as indicated by several interviewees). The ‘Sady Peremohy’ initiative was largely inspired by the Victory Garden movement in Western countries during World War I and World War II. The Ukrainian initiative, as those in the past, aims to meet the nutritional needs of the war-affected communities, as well as to raise social morale. It was organised jointly by the Ministry of Development of Communities and Territories and the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine. It provides seeds, seedlings, related resources and knowledge to everyone who wishes to set a ‘victory garden’ on a household plot, a balcony, or a dacha yard. The project aims to mobilise communities to access all lands available, including wastelands, parks and lawns, backyards or apartment roofs, as potential places to grow food. It became a successful campaign, not only by encouraging thousands of people to grow their own food, but also by rising collective spirit and hopes for victory. The harvested products are consumed within the communities and sent to people in the temporarily occupied territories, internally displaced people, and those on the front lines (Sady Peremogy 2022).

Farmers’ ‘second front’

‘All agrarii [agricultural producers] understand that they need to feed their families, the army, and the country. We are the second front. We work and take risks so that our country has food’ – said Vitalii Lupynos, the owner of the ‘Agrofirma Lev’ in the village Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia region [7]. The war has sparked massive patriotism among farmers and other food producers, as indicated in all interviews for this study. However, this patriotism is not accompanied by patriotic discourse or inspiring slogans. This is more mundane patriotism, expressed in deeds, not in words. Speaking about their agricultural activities during the war, private farmers claimed that they were doing their job and refused to be praised for it. Their heroic acts, however, are recognised by many in Ukraine, who now speak of farmers as war heroes (based on several interviews and observations).

When the war broke out and many people began to flee to safer places, family farmers and smallholders stayed behind. Most of the interviews pointed toward farmers’ sense of responsibility for the national food security. Besides that, the specificity of agricultural activities kept people in place: ‘a cow is not a cat, you cannot put it in a backpack [and take it with you],’ – said Marina Radchenko, who evacuated people from the village of Nalivaykovka, during the advance of the Russian army [8].

Family farms and rural households have joined forces to collect and prepare batches of products to be sent to Ukrainian soldiers on the front line and internally displaced persons who have found refuge in western Ukraine. Vitalii Dankevych [4], whose relatives run a small family farm on 5.3 hectares in the Zhytomyr region, said that the farm donated ten sacks of potatoes, a sack of carrots and one sack of beets for the needs of the army.

However, it is not only small farms that donate food. For example, the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Rada – an association of large farmers and agribusinesses – has collected wheat and other food products for humanitarian purposes. Thus, the Zhytomyr members of the association collected wheat for flour to be sent to Kyiv, when the capital was partially blocked and there was no flour for baking bread (interview with Vitalii Dankevych [4]). Olena Borodina [6] challenges the sincerity of large agribusinesses’ charitable campaigns, seeing them as driven by commercial incentives and advertisement. She emphasised that small farmers do charity work quietly without attracting much attention and give away food intended for their family needs. Meanwhile, big agribusinesses often engage with the media to draw public attention to their good deeds and give away food that they cannot sell:

We had an ecological catastrophe at the Chernobaevskaya poultry farm [note: the largest poultry farm in Europe] in the Kherson region, where four million birds died due to the destruction of the local power plant. There was no water, no food, no opportunity to care for these birds. They died. It was impossible to dispose of so many dead birds at once. Seeing this example, other large poultry farms that faced similar problems have distributed their birds to people. They presented this as a contribution to food security. But it is one thing when you take food from your cellar, away from your children, it is another thing when you do it, because you have no other choice. Either you give this bird and eggs to people, or you will have a huge environmental problem.

Many private farmers are also engaged in territorial defence: they organise checkpoints, control entry, patrol territories and repair military equipment, as described by Mykola Stryzhak, the Association of Farmers and Private Landowners of Ukraine [2]:

In our district, the chief of militia [police] supervises the farmers. A couple of people received machine guns – those who know how to handle them […] In the Cherkasy region, a farmer’s son went into the army, and his father began to repair military cars. Once, he even received the ‘Grad’ [a multiple rocket launcher], well, without installation. He repaired it. But then a missile hit his home […]. Farmers volunteer and help the Ukrainian army with one hand, and sow and harvest with the other.

Rural areas have become destinations for many urban residents fleeing airstrikes and related destructions in the cities. Thus, the Zhytomyr region received about 96,000 internally displaced persons who came largely from Zhytomyr and Kyiv (for comparison, there were 266,106 inhabitants in Zhytomyr before the war). Most of these people stay with their relatives and friends, while others are hosted by private farmers and smallholders. There are many bottom-up initiatives and organisations aimed at helping internally displaced people to find homes and food in the countryside. One of those is ‘Zelena Doroha’ [Green Road] of eco-villages, which was originally aimed at providing Ukrainian refugees with temporary places to stay on their way to the western regions and Europe. However, many people chose to stay in eco-villages for longer periods and became part of their communities. To date, about 300 eco-villages have received approximately 2,500 people. One of the organisers of the ‘Green Road’ initiative, Anastasiya Volkova [9], describes:

We are not a shelter. There are shelters that accept large numbers of people as transit points, everything is institutionalised there. We may not have everything perfect, but we offer something else: sincerity, a human attitude, a calm atmosphere of being in nature. People appreciate this. They are hosted by families in their homes, or they receive rural houses and help from the community.

It is difficult to estimate how many people will make the countryside their permanent residence. Anastasiya Volkova says that those, who find the rural lifestyle too difficult, have already left. In the village, where Anastasiya lives, four families decided to stay for the coming winter. Other informants in this study also pointed to a certain proportion of internally displaced persons, who may stay in (often sparsely populated) villages for longer periods, engage in small-scale farming, and, thus, contribute to the re-population and revitalisation of the Ukrainian countryside.

Collaboration and mutual help

The war has sparked a massive wave of solidarity initiatives and collective action, of which the most common are informal initiatives. Reciprocity, mutual assistance and good neighbourly relations help people cope with the hardships of war and grow, harvest, prepare and share their food. According to Anastasiya Volkova [9] from the ‘Green Road’ initiative, the war has accelerated the processes of solidarity and mutual help within their network of eco-villages and beyond it. She described the processes in her village that helped overcome social divisions and led to the emergence of collective action:

Our eco-village is located in an ordinary village. When the pereselentsi [settlers / internally displaced persons] began to arrive, we received them in our homes, as the locals did. Together we went to register the pereselentsi at the village council. Before the war, the villagers were sceptical of us. In their eyes, we were strange people who grow ‘weeds’ in the garden, do not farm in the usual [industrial] ways, do not eat meat, do not drink horilka [a Ukrainian alcoholic beverage]. But here we are on an equal footing. Our women, together with the local village women, bake pies for the needs of the army. Our men, along with the locals, went to harvest. It helped us get closer.

In addition to internally displaced persons and refugees, many farmers and agribusinesses are fleeing the regions with active hostilities. The Ukrainian government has initiated a relocation programme for businesses. The most popular destinations are the Transcarpathia, Lviv and Chernivtsi regions. In the Lviv region alone, more than 300 locations are prepared to receive agricultural enterprises, and, by the end of May, 13 food producers from the Kyiv, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv, Kherson and Donetsk regions found a new home there (the Lviv Regional State Administration 2022).

However, many resettlement initiatives take place at a community level and are not initiated or supported by the government. According to Olena Borodina [6], private farmers and smallholders support and share their land with their fellows, who escaped the war. This support is informal and no money is asked for in return. Olena refers to the example of a young woman – a farmer from the Melitopol region, who found refuge in Transcarpathia. She received a small plot of land from local farmers to set up a rabbit farm there to be able to sustain herself. She will not return home until Melitopol is liberated.

There are also examples of smallholders gathering their animals in collective herds for various reasons: the destruction of their farms and related equipment, more efficient collective dairy production in wartime, evacuation of smallholders, or labour shortages. Marina Radchenko [8], the former head of the village council in Nalivaykovka, from where many smallholders were evacuated due to the occupation by the Russian army, describes their initiative:

We decided that people would take their cows to the street, from where the territorial defence moved them to an old collective farm with a suitable cowshed. It is located next to a pasture. Smallholders opened their gates, cried and said goodbye [to their animals] as to people. […] The cows were milked twice. Some of the milk froze, we gave it to pigs. The rest was processed into cottage cheese and sour cream, which we then sent to the Zhytomyr region, where our fellow villagers were evacuated.

However, not only smallholders and farmers help each other. There are examples of large agribusinesses assisting rural communities with repairing village infrastructure and houses that were damaged during military operations. This is not a new form of help: before the war, large agribusinesses provided such assistance as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes (Gagalyuk, Valentinov, and Schaft 2018). The new activity that emerged during the war was the aid of big agribusiness to smallholders and farmers with some farm input, most notably seeds. Thus, Alex Lissitsa – the president of the association ‘Ukrainian Agribusiness Club’ that unites the largest food producers in the country – organised the charitable initiative ‘Borsch’ to supply rural households with seeds to grow vegetables for the traditional Ukrainian soup ‘borsch’ (cabbage, carrots, onions, beetroot). In the Zhytomyr region, LLC ‘Monsanto Seeds’ of the Bayer company, on the eve of the spring sowing campaign, donated more than 140 tons of corn seeds to about 150 small farms. In commenting on these deeds, agricultural experts interviewed for this article suggested these were largely advertisement campaigns.

Land grabbing and large- versus small contestations

Family farms are the main opponents of large-scale industrial agriculture, because they have to compete with big agribusiness for land and markets and often face ‘competitive exclusion’, as revealed by Mamonova (2015). Large agroholdings are infamous for their land (control) grabbing. While most of their land accumulation strategies are carried out within the law, many agroholdings engage in shady schemes, ally with local governments (including bribing, patronaging and promoting their protégés in the government), and deprive local populations and farming communities of access to lands (Visser and Spoor 2011). These practices did not end with the war. On the contrary, some companies use the momentum of the war to seize more land. There are enough instances, when large agribusinesses grabbed land from small farmers, who, due to the war, could not be on their farms or control all organisational matters. Vitalii Dankevych [4] shares a story of a farmer from the Chernihiv region:

Before the war, he bought some production facilities from a former kolkhoz. Air strikes partially damaged these facilities. The farmer was not there, he was in territorial defence. The air bomb blew out windows and doors, and when he returned home, he saw that there was no metal, equipment and other valuable things. Local [marauders] visited it. As a result, the farmer did not have time to renew land lease agreements. [He does not own land, but rents land shares from local villagers]. Several shares were taken away from him by a large agricultural company that has a farm in the area. [The company] seized the moment and grabbed these lands. This was not illegal per se. Yet, the farmer had an agreement with the owners of the shares, but he did not have time to put it up on paper. Officially, you cannot call this land grabbing, but it was land grabbing.

Such lawful but very unethical practices were common in the first months of the war, so the government had to adopt new amendments to the Land Code⁹ (in force since 7 April 2022). According to the amendments, all land lease agreements that expired after the introduction of martial law in Ukraine are considered extended for one year (without the will of the parties or registration in the state register of property rights).

However, there are many other schemes by which large agribusinesses accumulate land in wartime. Mykola Ztryzhak [2] from the Association of Farmers and Private Landowners of Ukraine described a situation in the Kirovograd region, where a large agroholding of 15,000 hectares took away land shares from five small farmers, each of whom had 50 hectares. The holding offered a rent of 15% of its harvest to landowners (villagers), who used to lease their plots to small farmers at a rate of 10%. The farmers were unable to beat this offer and lost the lands. After signing new land lease agreements with landowners, the agroholding announced that due to the state of emergency caused by the war, the new rental rate would be 3%.

Large agribusinesses remain the main recipients of state support for agriculture, as indicated by Mykola Stryzhak. He argues that even though the Ukrainian government initiated various programmes to support farmers during the war, the ‘telephone principle’ determines who gets the money:

Just as it was before the war, a law adopted by Verkhovna Rada [the Ukrainian Parliament] may not be implemented. But if someone ‘from above’ called on the phone – God forbid not to fulfil! Compulsory! […] The banks were ‘advised’ not to give credits to unreliable farmers. Unreliable farmers are those with less than 500 hectares.

Those farmers, who seek financial assistance from the state, have to deal with numerous bureaucratic procedures and excessive paperwork, but the resulting support is often insignificant. Thus, Roman Dyazhuk [10] – an organic farmer from the Odessa region, said that his farm was offered an interest-free loan from Ukrgasbank, but the amount was not even enough to cover fuel costs. While intermediary and trade companies may profit during the war, farmers suffer losses. According to Oleksiy Kondratenko – a farmer from the Mykolaiv region (interviewed in Agroportal 2022c), farmers receive a third of the costs incurred for barley: ‘today a lot of people earn on this grain, from transporters to exporters. They all have their margin and good profit. Only farmers, who grow the bread, work at a loss’.

There is growing criticism and animosity among farmers and smallholders towards the neoliberal agricultural model, which inequalities and injustices became more apparent and extreme during the war. At the same time, the war makes people put conflicts aside in the fight against the common enemy. Anastasiya Volkova [9] from the ‘Green Road’ describes her community’s attitude towards agroholdings:

We do not like them – they do not like us. There are two agroholdings nearby, which deluge their fields with chemicals right next to our house. Of course, we are not friends with them. But we are not going to conflict with them, because now we have absolutely no time for this. And, we understand that they also perform a very important social function now, they produce food.

Food sovereignty movement without the concept of food sovereignty

The public discourse about small farming as a sustainable alternative to big agribusiness persists and even intensified during the war. The images of Ukrainian farmers who plough and harvest under shelling contributed to their reputation as true patriots who guarantee the country’s food security. The problems with farm inputs (i.e. fertilisers, fuel and seeds) made many food producers rethink their production strategies and use more natural and traditional ways of farming. Realising their critical dependence on suppliers, small farmers began to look for alternative sources of seeds. The Romanian peasant movement for food sovereignty ‘Eco Ruralis’ – known for its propagation and distribution of local seed varieties (Hajdu and Mamonova 2020) – has donated their open-pollinated seeds to Ukrainian smallholders. These seeds allow farmers to produce their own seed supply for the next season, as opposed to industrial seeds that are often patented and cannot be reused.

However, there is no awareness of the concept of food sovereignty among Ukrainian small farmers. Even those who follow ideological beliefs in the sustainable production and consumption of traditional and self-grown food (for example, members of eco-villages) have never heard of ‘food sovereignty’. The concept of food sovereignty can be perceived by the post-socialist rural population as alien and, therefore, undesirable (as De Master [2013] exposes with the example of Polish farmers). However, the movement for food sovereignty exists in Ukraine for several years, but it does not use the concept of ‘food sovereignty’ for other reasons.

The Ukrainian Rural Development Network URDN [in Ukrainian: Ukrayinska Merezha Silskoho Rozvytku] was established in 2016 as a platform for mutual learning and exchange of knowledge and experience between academics and civil society working towards sustainable inclusive rural development (URDN 2022). URDN aims to (1) influence the agricultural policy to make it more oriented toward small-scale food producers; (2) reduce the political and economic power of industrial agriculture; (3) introduce a sustainable rural development policy (4), protect peasants’ rights to land and farming (from an email of Olena Borodina, the head of the URDN’s coordination council, 9 December 2019).

URDN collaborates closely with the European Coordination of La Via Campesina – the main advocate for food sovereignty in Europe. In 2018, URDN campaigned for the peasants’ rights and managed to convince the Ukrainian government to support the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, which was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on 28 September 2018. In 2019, URDN began to promote the concept and ideas of food sovereignty in Ukraine, but stopped by 2020. Olena Borodina [6] explains the decision to abandon the term ‘food sovereignty’ by its too ‘revolutionary’ character, which frightened both the government and the society:

It was like a red rag to a bull. Everyone was afraid of it. We now use: vnutrishnya prodovolcha bezpeka [domestic food security]. By this we mean local markets, short chains, food solidarity. We promote these ideas, without calling them ‘food sovereignty’, so as not to frighten. Even international organisations such as FAO are afraid of this term.

URDN used to influence the Ukrainian government through negotiations, analytical reports, collaboration with the authorities and supporting eventual farmers’ protests and resistance. However, with the outbreak of the war, the state officials do not want to listen to their arguments, citing the fact that ‘this is not the time for debates, let us win the war first’, – as reported by the URDN’s member Mykola Stryzhak [2]. Olena Borodina [6] is sure that now is exactly the time to transform the system, dominated by industrial agriculture:

The pandemic has shown the unsustainability of the neoliberal agricultural system. It must be transformed, the war confirmed this even more. The bells are tolling! We need to change the entire system at the global level. […] The experience of Ukraine has demonstrated which mode of production is more resilient and sustainable in force majeure circumstances. Why return to the agroholding model again? We are not saying that there is no need for agroholdings or to stop producing grain on an industrial scale, but the structural deformations that are currently taking place in Ukraine have shown that supporting small farms should be the key interest of the society and domestic food security.

URDN has suggested establishing an additional working group, entitled ‘Support for family farming and the rights of peasants’ in Ukraine’s Recovery and Development Plan, presented at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, Switzerland on 4 and 5 July 2022. However, the URDN’s ideas were largely ignored and the creation of the working group did not take place. But URDN did not give up and created an independent initiative group with the same name as the proposed working group. The group has chosen a new strategy: instead of trying to influence the Ukrainian government, it aims to influence the EU, which sets the conditions for Ukraine’s Eurointegration. The URDN’s scholars and activists participate in international conferences and meetings at the EU level. They argue that Ukraine should follow the European path of development and support smallholders and family farmers, while agroholdings may destabilise the EU agricultural system, if they enter European markets. Their study demonstrated that the level of corruption in a country is directly proportional to the number of large agricultural enterprises (Rikovskaya 2021). Therefore, curbing the development of agroholdings and transforming the Ukrainian agricultural system should be the requirements for Ukraine’s integration into the EU.

Conclusion

It is difficult to draw conclusions and discuss further developments amid the war. The situation is unstable and unpredictable, however, some of the findings of this article may indicate certain trends and processes taking place in Ukraine, which contribute to a better understanding of farming in a military context.

The war causes severe disruptions to the national food system, making the issue of resilience and persistence of different agricultural models critical to domestic food security. The example of Ukraine has demonstrated that smallholders and private family farmers can better adapt and survive in extreme conditions by relying on short food chains, alternative farm inputs, mutual help and solidarity. Meanwhile, large agricultural enterprises experience severe logistical problems and are unable to adapt quickly and change their plans and farming methods, which makes them less resilient in the war context. Moreover, the war exposed the weaknesses, unsustainability, and injustices of the neoliberal agricultural model and led many people to talk about sustainable alternatives in the form of localised food systems and family farming.

The war has further accelerated the development of a vibrant civil society in rural Ukraine, which is needed to protect peasant rights and endorse food sovereignty. A special role in this process is played by family farmers, who organised collective initiatives in their villages and became national heroes, by risking their lives to feed the army and the nation. However, farmer patriotism is mundane and not accompanied by public discourse or publicity, unlike large agribusinesses that often use their charity initiatives for promotional purposes. The war sparked a massive wave of solidarity and mutual help among both small farmers and large agribusinesses, who put aside conflicts and differences to help their country fight the aggressor. At the same time, there are enough instances of unfair and unethical actions of large agribusinesses, such as the seizure of land from small farms, as revealed in this article.

The war has shattered the dominant neoliberal agricultural system and created opportunities to challenge it, which are used by the Ukrainian network for food sovereignty. The network, however, neither proposes radical changes, nor uses the term ‘food sovereignty’ in its advocacy. It has chosen a non-revolutionary transformation and aims to facilitate dialogue between the state, society and agribusiness. With the outbreak of war, the dialogue was terminated by the state. As other studies show (Zerbian, Adams, and Wilson 2022), national governments in force majeure situations often choose short-term solutions to a food security crisis and miss opportunities for long-term sustainable structural changes. Thus, the Ukrainian network for food sovereignty has chosen a different tactic and is currently trying to influence the Ukrainian government through the European Union, which sets the conditions for Ukraine’s European integration.

Besides traditional farming in rural areas, this study has identified many other initiatives aimed at helping Ukrainians to grow their own food, such as the Victory Garden and the Green Road. Many urban dwellers, who fled the cities, found refuge in the countryside, engaged in small-scale farming, and some of them will make the village their permanent residence. The influx of city dwellers into the countryside contributes to the re-population and revitalisation of Ukrainian villages. In addition to urbanites, many farmers have left the regions with active hostilities and found new homes in western Ukraine.

The further development of food sovereignty and smallholder farming in Ukraine will depend on the ability of farmers’ groups to consolidate their efforts and force the national government to implement policies that are favourable to small-scale food producers. The liberalisation of the land market is one of them. Russia attacked Ukraine at the moment when the moratorium on land sales began to be lifted. On 31 March 2020, Verkhovna Rada adopted amendments to the Land Code, which determined the stages for the moratorium cancellation. At the first (transitional) stage, which started on 1 July 2021, one individual (not a legal entity) could buy up to 100 hectares of farmland. The transitional period was designed to allow small local farmers to buy the land first, and give access to the market for larger companies afterwards. After 2024, both individuals and legal entities will be allowed to purchase up to 10 000 hectares of land.

However, in an interview, Olena Borodina [6] mentioned that before the war, agroholdings began registering ‘puppet’ farms so that when the time comes, each of the farms would acquire 10,000 hectares, and, thus, agroholdings may remain in control of the Ukrainian farmland. Mykola Stryzhak [2] predicts that when the war is over, there will be a fight between big agribusiness and family farming:

… our children, our boys will return from the front. We will win [the war] and our boys will return. And then we [farmers] will make everything work. We will defend our rights and the future. Will it be easy? I do not think so. The big feudal lords will not leave without a fight. But we know how to fight!

Interviews cited in the article:

[1] – interview with Tetiana Shuliarenko, conducted 15-06-2022 (online)

[2] – interview with Mykola Stryzhak, conducted 22-07-2022 (online)

[3] – interview with Natalya Bragina https://agroportal.ua/news/eksklyuzivy/osinnya-posivna-pid-zagrozoyu-cherez-mobilizaciyu-pracivnikiv-agropidpriyemstv

[4] – interview with Vitalii Dankevych, conducted 15-07-2022 (online)

[5] – interview with Ilya Potapenko, https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/07/22/zvezdnoe-nebo-minnoe-pole

[6] – interview with Olena Borodina, conducted 08-07-2022 (online)

[7] – interview with Vitalii Lupynos, https://www.zoda.gov.ua/news/60456/drugiy-front–v-zaporizkiy-oblasti-pid-obstrilami-trivaje-posivna.html

[8] – interview with Marina Radchenko, https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/07/22/zvezdnoe-nebo-minnoe-pole

[9] – interview with Anastasiya Volkova, conducted 13-06-2022 (online)

[10] – interview with Roman Dyazhuk, https://agroportal.ua/publishing/intervyu/fermerstvo-v-umovah-viyni-chomu-dunayskiy-agrariy-nikoli-ne-viyde-z-organiki

Acknowledgements

This article is my humble attempt to channel my personal emotional struggles related to the war in Ukraine into a constructive process that has allowed me to analyze the tragic events from an academic perspective. I am very grateful to Ruth Hall for encouraging me to write this article as part of the JPS forum on “The Russia-Ukraine War and Global Food Politics”. I am eternally grateful to Olena Borodina, Vitalii Dankevych, Mykola Stryzhak, Anastasiya Volkova and all other informants for this research who are currently in Ukraine and who took the time to talk to me and share their stories, insights and experience of the war. I am also grateful to my family and friends in Zhytomyr and Kyiv who keep me up to date with the latest news and developments on the ground. I also appreciate the short interactions and conversations with the people I met at the Stockholm Distribution Center for Ukrainian Refugees. All these interviews, chats, conversations and other forms of interaction became the basis for this article. Furthermore, I would like to thank my colleagues at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska Institutet) for their comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. Finally, I would like to thank Jun Borras for his support during the peer-review process and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Natalia Mamonova

Natalia Mamonova is an associate research fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (Utrikespolitiska institutet) and a research consultant at the Department of Political Science of the University of Notre Dame. Natalia’s research interests primarily focus on contemporary grassroots (rural) politics in post-socialist settings. She studies rural social movements, food sovereignty, everyday (hidden) resistance, right-wing populism and state-society relations in Russia, Ukraine, and some other countries of Eastern Europe. After completing her PhD ‘Rethinking rural politics in post-socialist settings’ at the Institute of Social Studies of the Netherlands in 2016, Natalia was a visiting researcher and lecturer at the University of Oxford, the New Europe College in Bucharest, and the University of Helsinki. She is the principal coordinator of the European team of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI Europe), which is a scholar-activist community that aims at understanding, challenging and building alternatives to globalised neoliberal agriculture in rural Europe.

Notes

1 The armed conflict in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine – often called the ‘hybrid war’ – had been going on for 8 years before Russia’s full-scale invasion. In this article, when I talk about the war in Ukraine, I am referring to the full-scale war that began on February 24, 2022.

2 In Ukraine, there is no clear definition of small farms. I follow Shubravska (2021) who is included rural households in this category, as well as family farmers with land use up to 20 hectares. The difference between the two types of small farms is that family farming requires state registration as a legal entity or an individual entrepreneur and is allowed to hire labour, while rural households farm without the creation of a legal entity, but are not allowed to hire labour.

3 All informants agreed to use their full names in this article. This is not typical for such studies, where names are usually replaced by pseudonyms. However, people preferred their voices to be heard. This also increases the transparency of the data, as each quote can be easily traced back to a certain person.

4 Rent, paid by large agribusiness to rural households, is usually in kind or in amounts well below the market price. Moreover, large agribusinesses largely determine the terms of lease agreements, and it is sometimes difficult for rural households to terminate these lease agreements and withdraw land for private farming (see Mamonova [2015] on the ‘terms of inclusion’ of rural population in land deals).

5 See Borodina (2021) for the actual number of family farms in Ukraine. According to her calculations, about 12.6% of all rural households can be classified as family farms, which, together with registered family farms (excluding large farms operating as agribusinesses), produce 22% of gross agricultural product and cultivate 28% of farmland in Ukraine. However, the state statistics do not recognise this, since they are focused solely on revenue and the number of wages labour (see also Nivyevskyi, Yavorskyi, and Donchenko 2021).

6 Before the war, 5-10% of the largest agricultural enterprises received 70-80% of state funds aimed at supporting agriculture (Borodina 2021).

7 The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany.

8 The expression denotes something huge and majestic in appearance, but essentially weak.

9 No. 2145-IX from 24.03.2022 ‘On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding the Creation of Conditions for Ensuring Food Security in Martial Law’.