Ukraine's other fight: Growing food for itself and the world

HORDYNIA, Ukraine (AP) — Planting season has arrived in Ukraine. Boot marks stamped in the frozen earth have thawed. But the Pavlovych family's fields remain untouched in a lonely landscape of checkpoints and churches.

Over a week ago, the family learned their 25-year-old soldier son, Roman, had been killed near the besieged city of Mariupol. On Tuesday, the father, also named Roman, will leave for the war himself.

“The front line is full of our best people. And now they are dying,” said the mother, Maria. In tears, she sat in her son’s bedroom in their warm brick home, his medals and photos spread before her.

The Pavlovych family knows a second front line in Russia's war runs through the farmland here in western Ukraine, far from the daily resistance against the invasion. It is an uphill battle for farmers to feed not only their country but the world.

Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, leaving millions across North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia facing the potential loss of access to the affordable supplies they need for bread and noodles. The war has raised the specter of food shortages and political instability in countries reliant on Ukrainian wheat, including Indonesia, Egypt, Yemen and Lebanon.

It is unclear how many farmers will be able to plant or tend to their harvests with the war raging, forcing those like Pavlovych to the front lines. And the challenges keep growing.

Infrastructure — from ports and roads to farm equipment — is snarled and damaged, meaning critical supplies like fuel are difficult to get and routes for export almost impossible to reach. Fertilizer producers are paralyzed by nearby fighting, and a prolonged winter may disrupt spring yields.

“How can we sow under the blows of Russian...