The USAID AGRO Activity provided seeds and fertilizers to over 14,000 Ukrainian agricultural producers. Among them is the farming couple Kryvtsun.
Five years ago, the young couple, Yulia and Oleksandr Kryvtsun, settled in the village of Myshuryn Rih in the Dnipropetrovsk region and decided to engage in agriculture. Today, they cultivate about 100 hectares of their own and leased land, growing soybeans, corn, sunflowers, and wheat. In 2019, they bought a new tractor and are gradually updating their equipment. Yulia focuses on the legal and financial affairs of the farm, while Oleksandr handles the machinery. The couple works together, and in business and family, they have complete understanding and support. Since 2021, they have been sharing their farming experience on social media, and now they have almost 30,000 active followers.
“The war has made adjustments to our lives,” says Yulia. With the start of the full-scale invasion, their farm, like many others across the country, faced shortages and high costs of fertilizers and necessary resources. And due to complicated logistics and low grain prices, small farms find it difficult to secure working capital for daily operations.
The USAID AGRO Activity, under the USAID Initiative to support agricultural sector resilience – AGRI-Ukraine, provided fertilizers for the 2024 spring planting season. Yulia and Oleksandr’s farm was one of 7,621 agricultural producers in 23 regions of Ukraine that received urea. “Fertilizers were impossible to buy; they cost over 20,000 UAH per ton. For a small farmer, this is a huge help in such a difficult time. Thanks to the received fertilizers, we were able to fertilize 10 hectares of wheat and hope for a better harvest.”
Another change since the start of the full-scale war is unpredictable circumstances and a lack of workers. Yulia says she is learning to drive a tractor and studying all the details of growing agricultural products.
“I think it’s necessary to know everything. Even if it doesn’t come in handy in life, it’s better to know and be prepared. Although I have two higher humanitarian educations, I never thought I could be a tractor driver. I once dreamed of being a lawyer and working in an office, but now I can’t imagine my life without the field.”
Yulia says that in the early days of the war, they didn’t even think about leaving. After all, they have a responsibility to those who entrusted them with their land and are waiting for rent payments: for the rural population, this money is important. “Now we are just staying afloat. There’s no talk of profit like before the war. The only thing we do is pay people rent and buy seeds for the next year. We are trying to hold on in this difficult time. We believe that if we survive now, everything will be fine in peacetime. We believe in it.”
Despite all the challenges they face, they continue to work and plan for the future at home, on Ukrainian soil: “Ukrainian land is the most fertile in the world. We were born here. No matter what anyone says, it’s best at home. This is our land, for which we will fight. Despite everything, we need to sow and grow so that Ukrainians have bread on the table. And also to supply our Ukrainian grain to those countries that need it. Each of us must now make every effort in our field of activity, support the economy to preserve the country.”
