Andriy Dykun, Chairman of the Ukrainian Agri Council and SaveUA Charity Foundation, spoke to a number of specialized international media in Ireland, Australia, China, the United States, and the United Kingdom on the situation with humanitarian demining of agricultural areas.
According to Andriy Dykun, the media reports daily about his colleagues being blown up by mines, and about damage or complete loss of equipment due to mines. Due to the threat to life, most farmers skip the sowing season altogether. In particular, large agricultural enterprises in the Kherson region have not even started the spring sowing season, which is why Ukraine and the EU will not receive Kherson vegetables this year.
The largest area of contaminated land is in the South and East of Ukraine. More than 208,000 hectares need to be surveyed in Kherson region, almost 160,000 hectares in Kharkiv region, and more than 85,000 hectares in Mykolaiv region.
"About 174 thousand square kilometers of land in Ukraine are currently potentially contaminated. This is the land that is a source of food for about 81 million people around the world. This is an extremely large amount of work that Ukraine can accomplish only with the help of the international community. Humanitarian demining of Ukrainian territories requires ten times more specialists trained to international standards than are currently working in Ukraine. We must all work together to solve this problem to save the world from a food crisis and the lives of Ukrainian civilians from the deadly danger posed by mined areas," says Andriy Dykun, Chairman of the Ukrainian Agri Council and SaveUA Charity Foundation.
Answering journalists' questions, Andriy Dykun noted that without demining, dairy farms in the de-occupied and frontline regions will not be able to prepare roughage for livestock and will be forced to significantly reduce or even close the dairy sector.
For Ukraine, this means loss of jobs and loss of motivation for Ukrainians to return to their homes. It is also a big loss of investment, which takes at least 10 years to return in dairy farming.
Currently, the cost of demining ranges from $600 to $3,500 or more per hectare. But none of the farms that need demining will be able to afford it. After all, the average wheat yield in 2022 was 4 tons per hectare, and the average feed wheat price for the first quarter of 2023 was USD 150 per ton, meaning that farmers could potentially receive the same USD 600 per hectare of wheat.
According to the World Bank, the full range of humanitarian demining activities will cost about $37.4 billion. It is estimated that USD 1.5 billion is needed for the priority needs of surveying and prioritizing the demining of agricultural land alone.
"At all possible information platforms, at all official meetings with world leaders and fellow farmers, our association calls on partners to actively cooperate. After all, humanitarian demining will help to return life to the de-occupied territories and will allow the implementation of other reconstruction projects, including critical and transport infrastructure, and most importantly, it will save the lives of people who are under enemy fire every day," said Andriy Dykun.
More information by the links:
Elke week overlijden Oekraïense boeren door ontploffing mijnen
Ukraine farmers face huge mine risk
Ukraine farmers face huge mine risk - other media the same article`s name
Ukrainian farmers killed by mines in fields every week – UAC
Zboże z Ukrainy nadal w Polsce, ale rolnikom pomoże dofinansowanie
