A farmer in Mykolaiv Oblast plowed under tomatoes that people were picking for free
Residents believe the harvest could have been given to the military
A farmer in Mykolaiv Oblast plowed under a field of unsold tomatoes that local residents had been allowed to pick for free. The owner’s decision to destroy the remaining crop sparked outrage and a debate about how the vegetables could have been put to better use.
Over the past few weeks, videos of a field where tomatoes had been left to rot on the ground spread across social media. After calls went out inviting people to come and take the vegetables for free, people began flocking there. Footage shared online shows crowds of people, and there were so many tomatoes that they could be picked in large quantities.
Online reports attributed the farmer’s difficulties selling the crop to the destruction of food-processing plants in the region as a result of Russia’s armed aggression.
The owner later decided to plow the plot under, along with the remaining crop. This, too, was captured on video: a tractor drives across the field, crushing the tomatoes.
The farmer expressed his feelings about the people who came to collect the vegetables in a video:
“Who said they could take them for free? People ask me, ‘When can we come and get free cabbage from you?’ You just want to throw in the towel and do nothing after people expect everything for free. The cabbage is being cleared out over there; there was a smaller head somewhere — yes, I could have given it away for free. But you understand that after they brazenly barge in, you don’t feel like doing anything for them anymore,” the farmer said.
Local residents, however, believe that instead of destroying the tomatoes, they could have been given to people for free or donated to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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