South Australia's Riverland is a world away from the conflict in Ukraine, but two local grain growers have been following the events closely.
Robin Schaefer, who farms just outside of Loxton, visited the breadbasket of Europe 10 years ago as part of his Nuffield Scholarship, a program for Australian primary producers.
As he watched the tensions rise over the past few months, he has been considering how it could affect his operations.
"Anyone who is not doing that in this current environment should be because we're very much in a state of flux at the moment."
Sanctions on Russia are expected to further exacerbate the pressure on-farm costs, with the price of fertiliser already skyrocketing amid the COVID-19 pandemic and China trade issues.
"[Russia] is, I think, the next highest producer of fertiliser outside of China, so that can have some certainly significant ramifications on our fertiliser pricing," he said.
Additionally, Mr Schaefer said the wheat market has been increasingly volatile as Russia and Ukraine together produce 30 per cent of the world's wheat exports.
He acknowledged that if the conflict continued beyond winter when the Black Sea thawed, Australian grain farmers could stand to benefit.
Stark contrast
During his visit to Ukraine in 2012, Mr Schaefer said he was surprised by the stark contrast between the country's agricultural past and its present.
Ukraine, the second-largest nation in Europe, only became independent again in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"You'd be driving down the road and you'd see a harvester that was out of the 1950s or '60s," Mr Schaefer said.
"Then on the other side of the road you'd see the state of the art tech that you'd see in any modern, efficient Australian farm, side by side."
Mr Schaefer said it was incredible to see first hand just how productive farmers were in Ukraine.
"You name it, they grow it.
"In some of the country they can produce several crops a year."
Out of touch
Chowilla farmer James Robertson, who visited Ukraine the year before Mr Schaefer as a Nuffield Scholar, has retained connections from his trip.
However, as Russian troops advanced across the country's border, he lost contact with his former interpreter.
Mr Robertson said his interpreter's most recent communication was a post on social media stating that she had awoken to see the Russian flag flying above the municipal offices in her town.
Mr Robertson said he had also been fascinated by how present the country's past was during his travels.
"When we landed in Kyiv we instantly realised we were in a Soviet-style country," he said.
"You're taxiing on the runway and you're going past war planes and broken-down helicopters.
"You could always tell there was that extra bit of tension in the air.
"Almost everyone we met and were hosted by had been affected by [the Cold War]."
Hopes quashed
Despite the lingering memories of the Cold War, Mr Robertson said things had looked bright for the independent nation.
"But it's identified as a developing country in the per capita income."
According to The World Bank in 2020, the per capita income of Ukraine was $3,734.90, which was on par with other countries including Tunisia, the Philippines, and Libya.
Mr Robertson said he returned home to Australia with a sense that the people he had met were optimistic about the future.
"I feel that everyone was in a good place in terms of how they thought things were going to pan out in the future, but obviously they still had concerns," he said.
"I think they thought the future looked better than it has actually panned out."
