Land abandonment as an indicator of Ukrainian agricultural resilience during Russia's war against Ukraine

Amidst the war, the resilience of Ukraine's export agriculture sector – among the top 10 worldwide and critical for food security – remains a global concern. Here we investigate agricultural resilience in eastern and southern Ukraine by testing the linkage of war and weather on satellite-assessed agricultural abandonment since 2011. We find that less than 0.05 % of the area has been fully abandoned since the war's start in 2014, with another 0.7 % since 2016, and 5 % in early abandonment since 2022. Meanwhile, 0.3 % of the area was fully abandoned then recultivated. Russian occupation is most strongly and positively associated with total abandonment followed by annual precipitation and annual agricultural extent since 2018. In 2023, uncultivated fields were ∼3 times more common in regions previously supplied by the Kakhovka Reservoir than outside those. This study demonstrates how integrating satellite imagery and open data can deepen our understanding of agricultural resilience and inform post-conflict recovery. • Integrating varied data deepens our understanding of agricultural resilience. • High levels of early-stage abandonment along the frontline and in conflict regions. • The presence of occupation, more than its timing or intensity of conflict, explains abandonment. • Region once irrigated by destroyed dam has 3x more unfarmed land than outside. • Enduring abandonment in regions impacted by the start of the war (i.e. 2014).