Local Farmer Heading To Ukraine To Help Provide Food To Areas Destroyed By Russian Attacks
/Local man David Black will leave his own farm in Stirling behind and take off on Thursday to help operate a tomato farm in Polonne, Ukraine that provides seedlings to areas of the country that have been destroyed by Russian occupation.
David Black ( right, green jacket) with a group of refugees he helped to transport on his last trip. Photo courtesy of David Black.
Thursdays trip will not be Black’s first trip of the year to aid Ukraine.
Black travelled to Poland for about three weeks in March and, with a friend, volunteered to transport those fleeing Ukraine away from the Poland/Ukraine border.
After driving thousands of kilometers across Europe, Black decided that the 140km/s speed limits weren’t for him. His girlfriend also pointed out that joining the army may not be a good option for the semi-retired Private Investigator.
“What I can do is farm,” he said.
The Ukrainian Government has exempted farmers from military duty, though Black points out that many are still volunteering.
“They’re exempt from fighting, but there’s going to be a lot that say ‘well this is the right thing to do, this is my country.’”
Black reached out to friends he made during his last trip, and spread the word that the was willing to farm.
He received an email from a woman, written completely in Ukrainian. While he does not speak the language he recognized the word ‘ферма’ which means farm.
He contacted a young Ukrainian woman he transported to Germany and she has become his translator.
That mystery email lead him to connect with a family farm in Pollone, a town located between Lviv and Kyiv that was in need of help.
This farm grows tomato seedlings, which are then shipped to agricultural areas of Ukraine that have been destroyed by Russian bombs and fighting, in hopes to restore food production.
A local farm worker unloads Ukrainian-made fertiliser from a truck to use on a wheat field near the village of Yakovlivka after it was hit by an aerial bombardment outside Kharkiv. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Thomas Peter.
