Ukraine’s farms once fed billions but now its soil is starving

By Mark Sutton, Honorary Professor in the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh
Sergiy Medinets, Biogeochemist, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

For decades, Ukraine was known as the breadbasket of the world. Before the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, it ranked among the top global producers and exporters of sunflower oil, maize and wheat. These helped feed more than 400 million people worldwide.

But beyond the news about grain blockades lies a deeper, slower-moving crisis: the depletion of the very nutrients that make Ukraine’s fertile black soil so productive.

While the ongoing war has focused global attention on

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