A Quebec organization is offering new greenhouses and dairy processing facilities to Ukrainian farmers suffering the effects of the Russian invasion.
The Quebec-based cooperation organization SOCODEVI launched a new project in Donbass in January 2021 to support farmers in the region who were displaced during the war in 2014 and are finally back home.
But because of the conflict with Russia, they had to leave their facilities again in February.
“We had started a post-war project so that people could find their land and farm in peace. But they had to go another time,” remembers François Dionne, director of international programs at SOCODEVI.
A safe place
Some of them are now based in Lemberg, a relatively unscathed city in the west of the country.
“Some farmers take in relocated colleagues and give them space to support them,” says Iryna Volovyk, a local project partner.
She and her colleagues also came up with the idea of building two greenhouses originally intended for the Donbass on the outskirts of Lviv so that displaced peasants could continue their activities.
Photo courtesy SOCODEVI
“Our farmers not only have to survive, but also think about the future,” says Volovyk.
Even if many farmers are still able to continue their activities, they are not necessarily able to sell their holdings.
This happened at several dairy farms as food processors closed their factories.
However, these farmers still have to take care of their animals, which means they are faced with large quantities of unpasteurized milk.
A question of survival
“Milk production is the only source of income in some villages and a matter of survival for some families,” says Olena Velychko, another SOCODEVI partner.
A dairy cooperative on the border between the Kharkiv and Dnipro regions has therefore geared up for artisanal cheese-making in-house.
Photo courtesy SOCODEVI
Sofia Burtak from the Dnipro Agriculture Extension Service and Natalia Zakharkiv, finance director of a network of rural women entrepreneurs, visit the kiosk of Luba, member of the Pokrova cooperatives supported by SOCODEVI projects in Ukraine. Luba sells her farmhouse cheese at a small open-air market in the Lviv region of western Ukraine.
Others “process the milk into new products for the local market, like pasteurized milk or sour cream. Part of it is offered free of charge to resettled people and the army,” says Ms. Velychko.
Shortly before the invasion of Ukraine, SOCODEVI also worked on a project for a milk processing plant in Lviv.
“We’ve been wondering if we should stop, but eventually we’re going to stop it because people really need it. This is an example of food security support,” says Mr. Dionne.
“We are encouraged to continue the projects to stay. In the years to come, there will be much appetite from the Canadian government to invest in international cooperation to rebuild the country,” he believes.
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