While much has been said about the impact of the war in Ukraine on global food markets, little is known about what is happening in Ukraine and how different food producers are coping with the hazards of the war. Natalia Mamonova discusses the impact of the war on Ukraine’s bimodal agrarian structure and what it could mean for small-scale farmers in Ukraine.

Ukraine – known as the “breadbasket of the world” – is home to large and small farms that, before the war, were able to coexist side by side for many years. Large farm enterprises specialise in monocrop export-oriented agriculture (predominantly grain and oilseeds) and contribute to a half of the gross domestic agricultural product. The other half is produced by smallholder farms, represented by semi-subsistent rural households and more commercially oriented family farms that produce staple food for the domestic market.

Such bimodal agrarian structure could be an example of a successful “coexistence scenario”, advocated by the World Bank and neoliberal economists, if not for a few “buts”. Large-scale agriculture is dominated by vertically and horizontally integrated groups of affiliated agroenterprises – the so-called agroholdings – that monopolized the entire agricultural value chain, receive the bulk of the state subsidies, and are often involved in land grabbing. Agribusiness lobby for policies that benefit large corporations, and the Soviet belief that “big is beautiful” had been shared by politicians, business and society. In such conditions, smallholders were left to survive, not to prosper.