After more than four years of warfare, Ukrainian farmers face severe obstacles as they try to continue working their fields. Hazards and challenges include Russian drone attacks, mined fields, damaged infrastructure, costly fuel, fertilizer shortages, and much more.June 1, 2026, 1:28 PM ET Ivan Antypenko / Suspilne Ukraine / Global Images Ukraine / GettyUkrainian farmer Oleksandr Hordiienko carries an anti-drone gun while holding “Chuyka,” a Ukrainian drone detector that helps spot Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), while his employees work on a tractor in a field in the Kherson region, Ukraine, on July 29, 2025.Ivan Antypenko / Suspilne Ukraine / Global Images Ukraine / GettyAnti-tank fortifications, also known as “dragon’s teeth,” stand in a sunflower field on July 24, 2025, seen in the Kherson region.Ivan Samoilov / Frontliner / GettyExplosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) inspectors of the National Police examine and remotely detonate the warhead of a downed Geran 2 attack drone, after clearing dry vegetation on a farmer’s field on September 22, 2025, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Police warn that civilians who attempt to recover explosive fragments risk death: “There have been fatal cases, including children,” said EOD specialist Oleksii Poliakov.Evgeniy Maloletka / APA wheat field burns after Russian shelling a few kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Kharkiv region on July 29, 2022.Pierre Crom / GettyViktor, an agricultural worker, stops a combine harvester near the remains of a rocket on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on September 7, 2023.Efrem Lukatsky / APVictor Tsvik, an owner of a private farm, shows a fragment of a Russian drone that fell in his field in the Kyiv region, Ukraine, on August 3, 2025.Andriy Andriyenko / APSoldiers of Ukraine’s National Guard 15th Brigade launch a reconnaissance drone from a wheat field to determine Russian positions, as a farmer harvests in the background, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, on July 29, 2024.Sergei Supinsky / AFP / GettyThe shadow of a helicopter is seen on a field of sunflowers in the Kyiv region on July 14, 2022.Viktoriia Yakymenko / Suspilne Ukraine / Global Images Ukraine / GettySurviving pigs are seen in front of a farm building hit by a Russian drone strike on October 3, 2025, in the Kharkiv region. A massive strike by Russian drones on the night of October 3 hit a farm in the Nova Vodolaha settlement, destroying farm buildings and killing most of its 15,000 pigs.Wojciech Grzedzinski / Anadolu Agency / GettyA view of a destroyed farm in Dovhenke village in the Kharkiv region, seen on June 22, 2023Alex Babenko / APSunflowers draped with fiber-optic cables left behind by passing drones are seen near Sloviansk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on September 11, 2025.Darya Nazarova / AFP / GettyA worker leads a horse into a truck during the evacuation of horses from a stud farm to a safe place to protect them from possible air attacks, near Novomykolaivka, Zaporizhzhia region, on December 17, 2025.Efrem Lukatsky / APA farmer works to harvest a field 10 kilometers from the front line, maneuvering around a crater left by a Russian rocket, in the xDnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on July 4, 2022.Roman Pilipey / AFP / GettyUkrainian service members of the 59th brigade’s mobile-air-defense unit fire a Soviet-made ZU-23 anti-aircraft twin-barrel auto-cannon toward a Russian drone, during an air attack near Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region, on July 19, 2025.Andrii Marienko / APFragments of Russian missiles and weapons lie on a field as farm work continues in the background, near the front line in the Kharkiv region, on May 22, 2026.Ivan Antypenko / Suspilne Ukraine / Global Images Ukraine / GettyUkrainian farmer Serhii Mykhaltsov shows Russian first-person-view drones that fell in a field thanks to electronic-warfare systems that Ukrainian farmers used on July 29, 2025, in the Kherson region.Sergei Supinsky / AFP / GettyDe-miners with the humanitarian organization HALO Trust work to clear farm land of explosives near the village of Yevgenivka, in the Mykolaiv region, Ukraine on April 9, 2023.Andrii Marienko / APA sapper removes potential explosive items from an agricultural field in Balakliia, Kharkiv region, on April 30, 2026.Francisco Richart / SOPA Images / LightRocket / GettyA Ukrainian reconnaissance drone flies above a field covered by discarded fiber-optic drone fibers on the Sumy front on January 28, 2026.Efrem Lukatsky / APMykola Kravchenko hangs laundry on a line attached to a fragment of a Russian rocket in the village of Maydanivka, Kyiv region, on May 30, 2024. The rocket fell on Kravchenko’s farm at the beginning of the war, in 2022.Pierre Crom / GettyDe-mining teams from Ukraine’s State Emergency Service clear an agricultural field using a remote-controlled GCS-200 mine-clearing vehicle on September 27, 2024, in Svyatohirsk, Ukraine.Latin America News Agency / ReutersAn unexploded bomb is removed from an agricultural field near Kupyansk, Ukraine, on August 11, 2025.Dmytro Smolienko / Ukrinform / Future Publishing / GettyViktor Zinchenko takes care of a herd of 50 goats in Orikhiv, a city in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine, close to the front line.Pierre Crom / GettyUkrainian anti-drone units downed a Russian-launched Shahed UAV, which crashed in an agricultural field on August 10, 2025, in the Donetsk region.Ukrinform / NurPhoto / GettyA man walks among the ruins of a hangar granary that was destroyed by Russian shelling at one of the agricultural enterprises near Orikhiv in the Polohy district, Zaporizhzhia region, on July 8, 2025.Wojciech Grzedzinski / Anadolu Agency / GettyA destroyed Russian tank rusts in a field near Dovhenke village in the Kharkiv region on June 22, 2023.Wojciech Grzedzinski / Anadolu Agency / GettyLeonid Zolotariol walks beside a crater as he surveys his destroyed farm in Dovhenke village, Kharkiv region, on June 22, 2023.Metin Aktas / Anadolu Agency / GettyPart of a cluster-ammunition rocket sits embedded in a sunflower field after attacks in Izium, Kharkiv region, on September 24, 2022.