The agriculture ministry said on Monday that Ukraine has lost a quarter of its arable land to Russian occupation in some southern and eastern regions, although it does not pose “a threat to the country’s food security”.
“Despite the loss of 25% of arable land, the composition of the crops planted this year is more than enough to guarantee the consumption of the Ukrainian people,” Deputy Minister of Agriculture Taras Vysotskiy said at a press conference.
According to him, “consumption also decreased due to large displacements [da população] and emigration” out of the country.
Despite the significant loss of land in Russian hands, “the current structure of cultivated land … does not pose a threat to Ukraine’s food security,” Vysotskiy told the media.
“Ukrainian farmers managed to prepare relatively well for planting before the war began,” he added.
“By February, Ukraine had imported about 70% of the fertilizers needed for cultivation, 60% of phytosanitary products and about a third of the fuel needed,” he said.
But Russia’s occupation of many Ukrainian territories and Moscow’s grain blockade in the Black Sea forced Ukrainian farmers to “change what and how much to plant.”
Before the war, Ukraine had more than 30 million hectares of arable land, according to the World Data Center-Ukraine, an international NGO.
source: Noticias
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