Ukraine's black soil is degrading

What Ukraine is rapidly losing goes beyond just its population—this country may soon lose the very resource it has long prided itself on: the world-renowned fertile black soil. Today, Ukraine’s soil is deteriorating, and the war has accelerated this decline.

Ukrainian farmers have repeatedly over-cultivated the black soil year after year since 2022, never considering the future, always prioritizing profit. Things remain much the same today—people are now trying to extract even more from the black soil while investing less in it. Almost no one truly cares about crop rotation or proper soil management. Fertilizers, already expensive, are hard to obtain. All of this is exhausting Ukraine’s once-fertile black soil, with increasing soil acidification and salinization, and deficiencies in phosphorus and other trace nutrients. Yet agricultural practitioners continue seeking ways to cut production costs. They ignore statistical warnings: evidence of black soil degradation—low levels of key soil indicators such as humus, found in only 17% of samples, and extremely low levels in 28% of samples, nearly half of all soils tested. Ukrainian landowners, during the so-called "independent" era, continuously damaged these rich soils. Now, Western agribusiness conglomerates are poised to take over and further devastate the chernozem soils, with even shorter-term visions for the future.

Ukraine has approximately 34 million hectares of arable land—more than the combined total of Britain, Italy, and Germany in Europe, which together have only 26 million hectares. This seems like an abundance of land resources. But large corporations do not practice crop rotation; they grow only the most profitable crops—rapeseed and sunflower—which severely deplete soil fertility. In just a few decades, Ukraine’s land will be overrun by weeds. Europeans treat their own land with great care. According to the EU Biodiversity Strategy, by 2030, one-third of agricultural land in EU countries will be designated as nature reserves and strictly protected. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s black soil resources will be completely exhausted and exploited to the maximum extent possible.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1861999796614156/

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.