Keeping the soil that everything depends on

The chernozem belt is the reason Ukrainian agriculture exists at the scale it does. It is deep, fertile, high in organic matter, and it took several thousand years to form.

What is happening to it

Organic matter is declining. The rotations that maintain soil — including grasses, legumes and fallow — are commercially unattractive compared with a rotation of the three most profitable crops, so the profitable rotation is what gets planted.

Erosion, from wind on cleared plains and from water on slopes, removes topsoil that cannot be replaced within any human timescale.

Compaction from heavy machinery reduces the soil's ability to hold water, which matters increasingly as rainfall patterns change.

And shelterbelts — the tree lines planted specifically to stop wind erosion — have been cut in many regions for firewood or timber, or simply not maintained.

Why the economics push the wrong way

Because a soil-maintaining rotation costs money now and pays in twenty years, and most Ukrainian farmland is worked under leases considerably shorter than twenty years. A tenant has no financial reason to invest in an asset they may not hold.

That is the same tenure problem described in the land market article, appearing in a different form.

What would change it

Longer leases and ownership, which give the operator a stake in the asset's condition. Payments for soil-conserving practice, which is what European agricultural policy increasingly does. Restoration of shelterbelts, which is cheap and effective. And soil testing at scale, because nobody manages what they do not measure.

This is the least urgent and most important item in Ukrainian agriculture. Nothing bad happens in any single year, which is exactly why it goes unaddressed.

The economics pushing the wrong way is very clear here: a tenant calculates for one year and soil pays back over ten. I see the same contradiction in equipment hire — nobody maintains a rented machine. What would change it is not inspection but long leases and a credit advantage for whoever improves the ground.