Known as the bread basket of Europe, Ukraine is famed for its rich soils and abundant yields of cereals, plant oils and other food stuffs, most of which are normally exported to countries around the world.
But now farmers are facing terrifying challenges; from mined roads and unexploded ordnance to frozen corpses lying in fields and shortages of diesel and plant treatments, all of which is threatening this year’s spring planting.
What to do about spring planting is the question on many farmers' minds in those parts of Ukraine, afflicted by war with Russia and the human death and suffering accompanying it.
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Through it all, farmers in the country are still looking to grow food, to feed their people and for their livelihoods.
The challenges they face are terrifying. Alex Lissitsa is the head of a huge private farm in northern and central Ukraine, nearly the size of Co Leitrim.
The war is wreaking havoc on the operation with farmworkers unable to get to the fields.
"The Russians are quite brutal and they do leave mines in the fields and the roads to the fields because they are scared of Ukrainian partisans.
"One family in my home region (in the north of the country near the Belarussian border) was killed recently by mines.
"My first priority is staff safety and I will not send them to fields before these are all cleared."
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Mines and unexploded ordnance are also a grave risk for tillage and planting machinery, and in border regions occupied by Russians there is an even more gruesome reason not to start planting.
"In my region there are a lot of dead Russians still lying in the fields. In some fields there are like 100 Russians because it's cold they lie there.
"They should be collected and taken someplace. There are a lot of questions I am not able to answer."
Another reason farmers are reluctant to plant is the fear of drawing air attacks on themselves or nearby villages.
Dutchman and farmer Kees Huzinga has lived in Ukraine for 20 years but left for Holland when the war started.
He wants to return to his 1,500 hectare farm as quickly as possible. He explained the fear of using tractors where the Russians are attacking.
"In the planting season, we work day and night, but at night all the lights in the villages and towns are switched off so they are invisible from above.
"If you drive around in a big tractor, which looks like a Christmas tree, they might target you.
"Also, if it's close to a village it makes a lot of sound and light and people get scared."
Ukraine also has a dairy industry with a herd of close to 1.6 milllion cows, roughly the same as in Ireland.
Human suffering is eveyone’s first concern but sadly for cows on one dairy unit operated by Mr Lissitsa, the animals' future is bleak.
"The situation in north Ukraine is catastrophic. We have no idea what is going on in the villages with no electricity, no internet connection, very bad supply of food and water.
"We have a dairy farm with 1,000 cows, and it looks like they will all die soon, because there is no supply of fodder, no electricity for two days and the old generator we used for milking does not work anymore.
"The Russian soldiers just go through the villages with brutality, they shoot down everyone who is going around on the street so it looks like this modern Ukrainian dairy farm will soon be a memory because the animals will not survive."
Both men agree that trade access through ports on the Black Sea is crucial if the country is to survive the war.
Mr Lissitsa says the country only has 20% of the diesel that farmers need at the moment but its stores of corn and plant oils are full to capacity and if they are not emptied by exporting the produce there will be no place to store this years harvest.
Mr Huzinga says the port blockade will not just affect Ukrainians in the end.
"There are no ships, the ports don’t take goods, they are closed and the Russians are in front with their warships and they don’t let anything in or out.
"So, the Russians are starving Ukrainians here… but they will also starve the people of Northern Africa and the Middle East because there is no grain transport to these countries and they will soon face serious shortages.
"The first frontline is in Ukraine, but the second will be south of Europe."
