Dorset farmer leads mission to tackle Ukraine food shortage

© UKtoUkraine

A Dorset farmer is planning his third aid mission to Poland to supply vegetable seeds and gardening tools to address food shortages in Ukraine. 

James Boughey, an arable farmer from the Piddle Valley, has completed two trips to the border with Ukraine to deliver essential supplies since the start of the war.

See also: Ukrainian farmers wear bulletproof vests to sow spring crops

Project “Victory Gardens” will be the third mission of UktoUkraine, an initiative co-founded by Mr Boughey and friends Caragh Booth and Pip Holmes.

The project will supply and deliver vegetable seeds and tools to communities in western and central Ukraine where 6m eastern Ukrainians are refugees.

Land the size of Dorset has been provided for the project by local mayors in the Lviv area across to Zhytomyr.

The seeds will be planted and grown by teams of refugees, convened by UktoUkraine’s Polish partner, Stowarzyszenie Folkowisko. The aim is to ensure a supply of healthy food over the summer and beyond.

With the growing season now well under way, Mr Boughey plans to make his next trip within two weeks and will use funds raised through UktoUkraine to buy beetroot, carrot, courgette, cabbage, onion and potato seeds in Poland.

Important initiative

“This is an ongoing project that we hope will be able to sustain and help Ukrainian refugees,” says Boughey. “We know it is small, but there were small boats at Dunkirk. Initiatives like this are very important.”

The team founded UktoUkraine after their friend Agie Sikora, whose parents and family live in Horyniec-Zdroj, a small village four miles from the Ukrainian border, mentioned the village desperately needed supplies to support the thousands of refugees arriving from Ukraine.

The team organised and completed their first mission in just seven days, Mr Boughey said.

Cutting through the red tape and delays that have blighted support efforts by international aid organisations, UKtoUkraine has hand-delivered almost 16 tonnes of food, medical supplies, sleeping bags and 44 generators directly from UK villages to an emergency depot outside the border village of Horyniec-Zdroj.

Supporters including South West farmers Ian Hepburn, Rupert Nuttall and Chris Barber, were enlisted to drive a fleet of trucks and horseboxes to make the near 31-hour, non-stop 1,120-mile journey from Ramsbury Estate in Wiltshire to Kombornia in Poland.

Their latest mission has been inspired by an initiative led by Herbert Hoover during the Second World War, Mr Boughey added.

On March 23, Roman Leshchenko, Ukraine’s minister of agrarian policy and food, appealed to the country’s European partners for seeds and fuel to help the country’s farmers with their spring sowing campaign.

UktoUkraine has so far raised £120,000. Donations can be made here.