On Thursday, Ukraine's agriculture minister resigned from the position just a month after Russia launched a war that has destroyed spring crop sowing and prompted one of the world's largest grain producers to cease the export of some farm products.
Roman Leshchenko resigned, according to an aide, but no reason was given. Later, Ukraine's parliament stated that legislators had decided to support the appointment of senior politician Mykola Solskyi to replace Leshchenko.
Solskyi is largely regarded as a driving force behind the reforms that opened Ukraine's land market last year, removing a long-standing prohibition on agricultural sales.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made the step to open up investment options in the agriculture sector, despite the fact that Russia's invasion might significantly diminish the 2022 crop and exports in the 2022/23 season.
In an interview with Reuters this week, Leshchenko said that Ukraine's spring agricultural planting area could more than drop this year from 2021 levels to around 7 million hectares, compared to 15 million hectares projected before the Russian invasion.
Farmers seeded a total of 6.5 million hectares of winter wheat for the 2022 harvest, according to Leshchenko, but owing to war in several Ukrainian districts, the harvested area could be only around 4 million hectares.
He stated he couldn't predict the grain harvest in 2022 since "the situation hasn't entirely stabilized."
"The hostilities' territory is continually shifting, and we hope to see some changes in the situation in terms of reaching peace, and we'll be able to plant at least late crops in those locations that are currently in the war zone," he said.
Since the invasion, Ukraine has already halted rye, oats, millet, buckwheat, salt, sugar, meat, and livestock exports, while introducing licenses for wheat, corn, and sunflower oil exports.
