Demining Ukraine’s Farmland: Progress, Adaptation, and Needs

More than one thousand days into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, landmine and explosive remnants of war (ERW) contamination on Ukrainian farmland remains a complex and pervasive challenge for Ukraine’s farmers and government, its allies, and the global mine action community. Yet progress, both in survey and clearance operations and in coordinating support among Ukraine’s partners, has been substantial since the December 2023 publication of the CSIS report, From the Ground Up: Demining Farmland and Improving Access to Fertilizer to Restore Ukraine’s Agricultural Production.

As highlighted in the CSIS report and by others, Ukraine became the most mined country in the world in 2023. Estimates of the amount of time needed to fully demine affected territory have ranged from decades to hundreds of years, depending on the funding, equipment, and trained personnel available. In October 2024, Ukraine was reclassified from “heavily contaminated” to “massively contaminated” by the Mine Action Review’s Clearing the Mines 2024 report, though the full extent of contamination across Ukrainian territory, notably those occupied by Russian forces, remains unknown. Agriculture remains one of Ukraine’s most productive sectors, so contamination of Ukraine’s farmland is of particular interest to the Ukrainian government, its allies, and media.

Q1: What is the pace of clearance on Ukrainian farmland? What is the outlook for returning land to farmers?

A1: Though mine operators have made impressive progress surveying and clearing Ukraine’s farmland of landmines and ERW over the past two years, significant obstacles remain. Fully demining Ukraine’s farmland will require sustained and targeted support from the Ukrainian government and its partners.

Ukraine’s March 2023 Action Plan for Demining Agricultural Land designated 470,000 hectares of farmland as potentially contaminated and priority for clearance. In 2023 alone, 274,000 hectares of Ukrainian farmland, or 58.3 percent of the land designated in the action plan, were surveyed and, where needed, cleared of landmines and ERW. Of the land cleared in 2023, 208,000 hectares were returned to farmers for productive use. According to First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy of Ukraine Yulia Svyridenko, this area of returned farmland is theoretically capable of producing nearly one million metric tons of wheat valued at USD 225 million on international markets—or, in the minister’s words, “about 6 million loaves of bread on store shelves every day for a year.”

 As of October 2024, 531,000 hectares have been surveyed and cleared, with 439,000 hectares of this land already returned to farmers for productive use. The benchmarks set by the Action Plan, originally intended for a four-year period, have been met and exceeded by 61,000 hectares in under two years, with approximately 82.7 percent of the cleared land returned to farmers. This increased rate of clearance reflects Ukraine’s progress in procuring the funding, equipment, and personnel required to demine Ukraine’s territory writ large, including along the frontlines, as well as across productive territory such as farmland. At the beginning of 2023, zero mechanical demining machines were in use across Ukraine, only six mine clearance operators were certified, and just 1,500 sappers (or persons certified to conduct demining operations) were active. As of October 2024, 98 mechanical demining machines are at work, 58 operators have been certified with an additional 57 operators in the process of obtaining certifications, and 4,300 sappers are active.

Still, the action plan was designed to prioritize clearance operations on farmland with low contamination density and high feasibility for productive use. According to the State Emergency Services of Ukraine, approximately 25,000 square kilometers of agricultural land—an area roughly the size of the state of Vermont—remains contaminated in 2024. According to a Top Lead survey published by GLOBSEC, the full scope of Ukrainian farmland contaminated by ERW could be as high as 8 million hectares, or 80,000 square kilometers, including 6 million hectares located on Russian-occupied territories and 2 million hectares on liberated territory. However, the extent of contamination across Ukrainian farmland and its impacts on Ukraine’s agriculture sector will remain uncertain until the war’s end.

Q2: How has the Ukrainian government adapted to the scale of contamination on farmland?

A2: In March 2024, Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers approved a resolution to allocate UAH 3 billion of the 2024 state budget for a program to compensate farmers for the costs associated with demining farmland. The Ukrainian government started to implement this program in May 2024, reimbursing farmers for 80 percent of demining costs incurred from February 24, 2022, to April 15, 2024. The prerequisites for applying, however, mandated that the farmer held no tax debt and that their land had been confirmed as contaminated by a nontechnical survey conducted by a certified mine action operator. This program was expanded just months later in September to compensate farmers for 100 percent of demining costs and opened coverage to farmers with tax debt, thereby improving conditions for participation, particularly among small-scale producers.

In line with the compensation program’s expansion, Ukraine launched an open auction for demining services in the government’s Prozorro system through which farmers can procure contracts for services priced by bidding operators according to the complexity of contamination. This platform, though in its early stages, has already facilitated an 18 percent price drop in clearance operations procured, saving the state budget over UAH 44 million in its first 11 auctions.

The government’s “Made in Ukraine” economic policy has identified demining—including the domestic production of demining machinery and equipment—as an industry that can support Ukraine’s reconstruction and economic recovery. In May 2024, Minister for Economy of Ukraine Yuliya Svyridenko emphasized the government’s position that equipment clearing Ukrainian land should be manufactured domestically in order to generate revenue. In November 2024, the Minister continued to advocate for the purchase of Ukrainian-manufactured demining equipment. According to the Minister, these purchases can return up to 40 percent of the funding spent on production to Ukrainian businesses—thus creating jobs locally and supporting the state budget through taxes.

A number of innovative approaches for addressing and adapting to mine and ERW contamination have been supported by the government, as well. In November 2023, the Ministry of Economy and the Kyiv School of Economics launched an accelerator program for Ukrainian startups exploring innovations in the field of humanitarian demining, connecting entrepreneurs with courses, industry mentors, and resources for testing their technologies. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is collaborating with the companies Saatchi & Saatchi Ukraine and Kernel to convert contaminated fields for honey production by utilizing drones to sow land with nectariferous plants whose nectar would then be collected by bees. The harvested honey product is intended for use as an outreach tool for international partners and donors to demonstrate the importance of demining Ukraine’s territory and the creative means being employed in pursuit of this goal.

Q3: What has been the role of Ukraine’s allies and the global mine action community?

A3: As Bloomberg recently reported, Ukraine’s “supercharged” pitch for international aid has been met with “astonishing results.” At the Ukraine Mine Action Conference in October 2024, allied countries announced additional commitments amounting to roughly USD 70 million. The June 2024 Ukraine Recovery Conference resulted in an additional USD 35 million in dedicated funding for humanitarian demining. This funding is on top of the USD 700 million already allocated for humanitarian demining projects through 2027 by allied partners, including Canada, the European Union and its member states, Japan, Latvia, Norway, and the United States. In total as of October 2024, more than USD 1 billion has been pledged by Ukraine’s allies to humanitarian demining work.

Notably, Japan’s ongoing financial, advisory, and technical assistance has aligned holistically with the Ukrainian government’s priorities to scale training for a demining workforce, build the capacities of local operators, and localize the production of demining equipment within Ukraine. The United States’ AGRI-Ukraine initiative has expanded through the support of nine new partners, among them the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, signaling improved coordination among U.S. agencies working to facilitate both the clearance and release of Ukrainian farmland as well as the provision of financing, agricultural inputs, storage, and crop protection necessary to resume agricultural activities on released land. USAID’s AGRI-Ukraine initiative and related HARVEST project help leverage private sector investments to increase the use of improved agricultural practices and resources, and support soil decontamination and recultivation, further signaling the adaptation of U.S. government programming to the needs of Ukraine’s agriculture sector.

Beyond allied governments, a network of nongovernmental organizations, UN agencies, academic institutions, and philanthropists have likewise contributed to the full scope of mine action programming in Ukraine. As Paul Heslop, the head of UN Mine Action at the UN Development Program observed, efforts reflect “the combination of all previous [mine-affected] countries’ experience with the Ukrainian love of innovation and technology” and will push forward “a fundamental change in the way that humanitarian demining is done . . . that will affect mine action the whole world over.” Amazon Web Servies’ partnerships with The HALO Trust and Norwegian People’s Aid explore artificial intelligence–integrated innovations in landmine and ERW detection using drone imagery while funding and technical expertise contributed by the Howard G. Buffet Foundation adapts available equipment like tractors and bulldozers into demining machines that can be operated remotely. U.S. companies like John Deere have expanded existing support for Ukraine’s agriculture sector and mine operators by lending engineering expertise to this design of adapted demining machinery.

Q4: What else is needed?

A4: The government of Ukraine has set an ambitious goal of fully clearing Ukraine of mine debris by 2033. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal outlined the immediate needs to achieve this during his remarks at the Conference on Mine Action in Ukraine: an additional 10,000 sappers and hundreds of units of various equipment costing USD 37 billion, according to the World Bank. This sum would fund full humanitarian demining operations across the affected territory. According to Prime Minister Shmyhal, the Ukrainian government intends to build out its mine action management system, formalize a long-term international coalition for demining Ukraine, expand the production of demining machines, and increase the use of innovative demining methods and technologies.

As emphasized in the CSIS From the Ground Up: Demining Farmland and Improving Access to Fertilizer to Restore Ukraine’s Agricultural Production report, the implications of landmine and ERW contamination for Ukraine’s agricultural soil health should be a priority consideration as cleared land is released to farmers for productive use. The joint UN Food and Agriculture Organization–World Food Programme initiative to map, survey, clear, and conduct soil testing on potentially contaminated land across the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv oblasts has found that roughly 2.75 percent of the soils, amounting to nearly 739 square kilometers, are contaminated across the nearly 24,000 square kilometers of analyzed territory. In coordination with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine has recently announced the development of a system to analyze agricultural soils affected by the war, build capacity among domestic laboratories to conduct soil sample analysis, and provide farmers with guidance to manage this challenge. The ministry notes that the soils analyzed are “only point-contaminated by explosive objects, and the content of heavy metals or toxic substances in such soils does not have a significant effect on the quality of products.”

Ukraine’s development of a soil testing system is a promising step toward fully assessing the impacts of landmine and ERW contamination on Ukraine’s agricultural recovery. It is critical to emphasize, however, that the health of Ukraine’s farmland is not only affected by contamination on the land itself but also the ecosystems that support it. Documented landmine and ERW contamination across Ukraine’s forests and water bodies threatens hydrological systems and biodiversity in affected areas, which can have long-term implications for agricultural production. Landmine and ERW contamination of Ukraine’s environment is only one of many means through which Russian forces have wrought destruction on Ukrainian ecosystems and threatened the broader environment on which Ukrainian agriculture depends.

Q5: Why does contamination across Ukraine’s farmland remain a priority?

A5: In 2023, the agriculture, forestry, and fishing sector contributed roughly 7.4 percent of Ukraine’s GDP and food exports accounted for 60.3 percent of all merchandise exports, according to the World Bank. Ukrainian agriculture remains one of the country’s most productive sectors despite Russia’s deliberate and systematic attacks on its production and export capacity. A recent report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) includes an economic-impact assessment of landmine and ERW contamination across Ukraine’s territory. TBI found that contamination across all Ukrainian territory suppresses the country’s GDP by USD 11.2 billion annually or approximately 5.6 percent of Ukraine’s GDP in 2021. Its assessment of economic impacts on Ukraine’s agriculture sector, in particular, finds that annual agricultural exports are USD 4.3 billion lower in value than they would be absent this contamination.

Previous CSIS research describes the myriads of intentional and unintended avenues through which Ukrainian agriculture has become a casualty of Russia’s war on Ukraine. The vast, complex minefields Russian forces have laid on its farmland are one of the most deliberate and impactful efforts to undermine Ukraine’s capacity as a global food supplier and depress the economic and geopolitical benefits Ukraine reaps from its agricultural trade relationships. Landmine and ERW clearance on Ukrainian farmland is not just a humanitarian imperative for farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been threatened by Russia’s war or for the millions of people who depend on Ukrainian agriculture for their food security. It is an effort aligned with U.S. interests in a Ukrainian economy less reliant on U.S. and international aid and instead supported by its own agriculture sector.

Emma Dodd is a research associate with the Global Food and Water Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Caitlin Welsh is the director of the Global Food and Water Security Program at CSIS.

The authors would like to thank Antonina Broyaka and Vitalii Dankevych, senior associates (non-resident) with the CSIS Global Food and Water Security Program, for their contributions to this analysis.