Russian tank fires at Ukraine farmers

Jul 21, 2022

Two combine harvesters take damage, but farmers okay.

By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com; Image from Facebook video posted by Oleksand Vikul

Now this is a bad day on the farm.

We’ve all had days when the combine doesn’t want to start or it doesn’t cut the way you want it to, but how many Canadian farmers have had their day harvesting interrupted by a tank firing on you?

Such is the current lot in life for many a farmer in Ukraine.

During a video briefing on July 21, 2022, Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the military administration of Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk Oblast), described how a Russian tank had decided to take a little target practice at a pair of combine harvesters reaping grain.

He said (translated): "Today there was an unprecedented incident—two of our combine harvesters were harvesting grain near the village of Koshove, and an enemy tank drove out and began to target these combines.

“Thank God the guys managed to escape. There was only minor shrapnel damage to the equipment."

While Farms.com is no expert in tanks, we are pretty sure that if the operator wanted to hit the combines, it would have been done. And, not having seen the combines damage received—minor shrapnel was noted—we can assume that the Russian tank operator was not trying to kill, but instead just having some fun by having the artillery explode nearby.

At least in this instance, the Russian tank mission was not to destroy the harvest, which would have placed a further burden on the farmers, as well as the people of Ukraine who depend on the crop for food.

Unfortunately, what that shows is a callous disregard for life on multiple levels.

The farmers could have swerved into the line of fire, the shrapnel could have pierced and killed the farmers, it destroyed some of the crop, and who fires at people just for fun?

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”