After a couple weeks of attacks on Ukraine by Russian forces, much of Ukraine has now been destroyed. Millions have fled their country for fear of death. Their homes have been destroyed and their families have been separated as older members, women and children left, but younger men remained to fight for their freedom.
Many farmers have stayed to look after their animals and continue with feeding, milking and all the regular farm chores just like there was nothing going on. People with only a few animals said goodbye and turned them loose in the nearby . . .
woods to fend for themselves as their care-taking families fled the country. Dairy farmers must continue to milk their animals and dump the milk, even if the dairies that normally processed their milk are gone.
Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe because their farmers supplied a major part of the grain to many smaller countries with a small land base. The major grain port and grain elevators are now in the hands of Russia with some huge grain elevators destroyed by bombing.
If you were a farmer in Ukraine what would you plant? How much would you spend? Would you be alive to harvest? Would you even be alive to plant? Would you want your family to take over your farm?
We have noticed fuel, cereal, and other everyday products prices have skyrocketed because the ongoing war has disrupted or totally cutoff supply chains from Ukraine and Russia. Neither fuel nor food prices will return to prices we were used to for many, many years, if ever.
Canada has and can supply more fuel and food than Canadians need but, since the international market prices are elevated, Canadian prices will follow. Canadian farmers were already worried about rises in prices for fertilizer, seed and other chemicals doubling before the Russian invasion of Ukraine but now the fuel needed to plant, harvest and transport crops has more than doubled too.
Many people wonder why prices for products that Canada has a surplus of such as gas, all cereal products, meat, dairy products, and even potash fertilizer has skyrocketed? There are only four major international companies that buy, sell and market grain in the world. There are also only a handful of petroleum companies in the world. There are also only a handful of chemical companies that control fertilizer, seed and crop chemicals in our world. They have always been interested in making profits to keep their shareholders happy.
For too many years, too many people in this world denied climate change that our scientists have warned us about for the past decade or more. Before this invasion of Ukraine by Russia even started, most of the world agreed that we must address this for real war on reducing, stopping and reversing climate change.
Farmers had become used to listening to some huge, profitable chemical companies tell them that if they used their crop sprays and the seeds engineered to go with them, that life on the farm would be more productive and more profitable. Now farmers are being told that they must return to the way grandpa or even great-grandpa grew crops, only with new scientific reasons and methods to look after our soil and grow crops. For most of today’s farmers this is going to be the largest change in their lives and will require some high speed training and lots of experimental work on the farm. This is all coming at a time when the world needs more food and everyone is complaining about how expensive everything is.
So, what will our farmers plant is this spring? Ukraine was a huge producer of corn, wheat, barley, canola, potatoes, sunflower seed, sugar beets, milk, soybeans and many other vegetables. Because of the skyrocketing costs of fertilizer and fuel, all farmers initially look for something less expensive to plant. Famers will always be looking at what crops they need to make a balanced ration for their animals with as little purchased feeds as possible. With the extreme price increase in wheat price, some western grain farmers will be looking to plant more wheat.
If canola and soybean prices escalate, margarine prices may make butter more appealing to some. A trip to the gym burning that $2/litre of gas may make weeding a little garden in the back yard look like a very productive and less expensive exercise. Even growing a few tomatoes and veggies in flower pots on the balcony could not only give satisfaction to a balcony farmer but knock a few dollars off the food budget. At our house there is now a little herb greenhouse in the kitchen window. Grandma always kept a couple flower plants of parsley on the kitchen window sill beside the African violets, so there is nothing new here.
As we watch millions of Ukraine refugees scramble for their lives while carrying a child or a pet, we place new values on clean air and water, safe food and a safe place to sleep at night. Freedom is a luxury that too many in this world never know.
My dad once said, “Nothing like a few bad days to make us appreciate a good day.”
