The devastation wrought on Ukraine by its eastern neighbor began well before Russia’s brutal 2022 invasion. For many decades, Ukraine’s famed black soil, among the most fertile on Earth, suffered under the destructive, state managed collective agriculture introduced during the Soviet era.
Years of harsh, outdated farming practices degraded those soils, and yet, today, they supply most of the world’s sunflower products and a large portion of global wheat and barley. Agriculture brings in 40% of Ukrainian export dollars—essential income to a country at war. Farmers there are eager to repair their land and improve their harvests.
Ray Weil, a soil scientist from the University of Maryland, spent three weeks in Ukraine helping teach a new generation of farmers about soil health, regenerative agriculture and cover cropping. He worked alongside an international team of scientists, visiting a dozen large scale farms, including one corporate farm cultivating an area larger than all the cropland in the state of Maryland.
Some nights, he fell asleep to the explosions of anti-aircraft weapons or lost sleep taking shelter from air raids. Yet at each stop, crowds of farmers gathered for his “soil pit talks,” standing around special trenches dug to reveal the layers beneath their fields. Weil showed them how to assess erosion, compaction, nutrients and crop rooting, then offered strategies to restore fertility, water holding capacity and organic matter. His message was clear: reduce tillage, keep soil covered, increase biodiversity with cover crops, and rebuild the storehouse of carbon in the soil.
Many attendees were young farmers, often new to agriculture, with their fathers fighting on the front lines. Despite the hardships, their enthusiasm moved Weil. “There was so much interest,” he said. “I had hundreds of people around one pit.”
Now back in Maryland, Weil stays connected through WhatsApp and is determined to continue the work. “It was an opportunity to put our science to use for good,” he said. It’s become his mission to help heal the soil, and a country, from the ground up.
by Kimbra Cutlip
