Keeping the farm alive

How a small farm near Lviv survives the war

A man and a woman are standing in the center aisle of a cowshed.

Anna Temchyshyn and her husband Oleg run a small farm in the Lviv region. They earn their money mainly from their dairy cattle – including more than 100 dairy cows and 60 mature cattle. Next to their farm is a cheese dairy, which they supply with raw milk. The feed for their cattle, mainly wheat, grows on their own fields.

They were able to live quite well with this business model until the start of the war. When Russia invaded whole of Ukraine in February 2022, Anna and Oleg were hit by the rise in energy prices. Fertilizer and seeds, but also fuel became a scarce

commodity. They lacked the financial means to bring in the harvest and finish production. “It was very difficult at the beginning of the war,” they remember. “The cows have to eat twice a day and we had no money for that. We had to queue up to get even 20 liters of petrol.”

Anna and Oleg suffered immense losses. But with a loan from Bank Lviv, they were able to survive: They received the equivalent of EUR 17,500 through a programme of the Business Development Fund (BDF), financed by KfW on behalf of the EU, for fertilizer, seeds and fuel. It is only thanks to this support that her farm still exists today– and that her livestock has survived. While crop cultivation can quickly be resumed with high-quality seeds and fertilizers, it takes many years to grow a productive dairy herd, the two explain. That's why the loan was so important.

Anna and Oleg have plans for the future of their farm: They want to use solar energy to “produce high-quality, tasty and organic milk in the future”. Among other things, they would like to buy a hay baler so that they can wrap the hay, store it better and thereby produce feed of a higher quality for their cattle. They would also like their cows to be able to graze on pasture from April to September.

But what they desire most of all is an end to the war: “A peaceful sky above our heads”, they say, “so that we can hear the birds singing instead of explosions”.

About this project:

The project “Support for the East of Ukraine” was implemented by the Business Development Fund (BDF) and financed by KfW on behalf of the EU as part of the “EU4Business” initiative.