Norwegian fertiliser maker Yara still operates in Ukraine, supplying farmers who tend to their fields in spite of the dangers involved, the firm's chief executive said today.
The Oslo-based company, one of the world's largest suppliers of plant nutrients, has warned that Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a special operation, could hit global food supply.
"We have managed to get fertilisers into Ukraine over some time now, in collaboration with our employees there to supply that market," Yara CEO Svein Tore Holsether told Reuters.
The Norwegian company's office building in Kyiv was hit by a missile during the first week of Russia's invasion, although there were no injuries, and the firm has since stopped all sourcing from suppliers linked to Russia.
Yara has driven 120 trucks of fertilisers into Ukraine since the war started, Holsether said.
"The Ukrainian farmer knows how important his job is nationally and the consequences if they can't produce so that is a big burden for them as well," he said.
"At the same time we see pictures of Ukrainian farmers in bulletproof vests, and hear reports of mines in the fields," he added.
Farmers in Ukraine's southern region of Zaporizhzhia, which borders the frontline of the military conflict, have begun to wear body armour, a Reuters report showed this week.
Last week Ukraine's agriculture ministry said farmers have sown 2.5 million hectares of spring crops so far this year, 20% of the expected area, adding the spring sowing area could fall by 20% due to the conflict.
Ukraine and Russia are both major exporters of some of the world's most basic foodstuffs, together accounting for about 29% of global wheat exports, 19% of world corn supplies and 80% of world sunflower oil exports.
