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Crops ‘Stored Everywhere’: Ukraine’s Harvest Piles Up



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A small army of combine harvesters rolled across an endless farm field on a recent afternoon in western Ukraine, kicking dust clouds into the blue sky as the machines gathered in a sea of golden wheat. Mountains of soy and corn will be reaped in coming weeks. It will all add to a 20-million-ton backlog of grain that has been trapped in Ukraine during Russia’s grinding war.Under a breakthrough deal brokered last week by the United Nations and Turkey, Moscow’s blockade of Ukraine’s grain shipments through the Black Sea would be lifted. If all goes to plan, a vessel loaded with grain will sail from a Ukrainian port in coming days, releasing harvests from a major breadbasket to a hungry world.But despite fanfare in Brussels and Washington, the accord is being greeted cautiously in the fields of Ukraine. Farmers who have lived for months under the risk of Russian missile attacks and economic uncertainty are skeptical that a deal will hold.The roar of the combines on these fields is a familiar racket this time of year, but muc …

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