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Contribution type: New Concept
Concept: Agriecocide
Name of the contributor: Rinata Kazak, Paulo Pereira, Tetiana Kurman
E-mail of the contributor: rinata.kazak@liu.se
"Agriecocide"
Some wars are so destructive that they force us to create new words. The Second World War gave us genocide. The Vietnam War helped bring ecocide into international debate. The destruction of cities during the Bosnian War gave prominence to urbicide. Russia’s war against Ukraine has made visible another form of destruction that requires its own conceptual vocabulary: agriecocide. We introduced the concept of agriecocide in 2026 to describe large-scale destruction directed at, or seriously damaging, agricultural and agro-ecological systems. Agriecocide can be defined as: “A deliberate mass destruction, poisoning or contamination of objects and resources of the agricultural sphere (soils, water bodies, forests, crops, plantations of agricultural plants, livestock and other agricultural assets), as well as any other conduct likely to cause serious damage to agro-ecological systems or to food security.” The concept emerged from examining Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where warfare has affected some of the world's highly productive agricultural landscapes, including Ukraine's fertile Chernozem soils. It draws attention to forms of destruction that can disappear conceptually when agricultural damage is treated only as environmental damage, economic loss, property destruction, or an indirect consequence of armed conflict. Agriecocide is related to, but distinct from, ecocide. It focuses specifically on the destruction of agricultural and agro-ecological systems. Its consequences can extend much further: damaged soils and water, loss of crops and livestock, disruption of agricultural infrastructure and logistics, degradation of scientific and agricultural knowledge systems, impacts on rural communities, and threats to food security, resilience and long-term recovery. Ukraine provides a critical case through which this form of harm becomes particularly visible. Yet the concept is not limited to Ukraine or to wartime. Agriecocide offers a vocabulary for recognising the deliberate or severe destruction of the ecological and material foundations upon which agriculture and food security depend. The concept was introduced in 2026 by Rinata Kazak, Paulo Pereira and Tetiana Kurman in Introducing “Agriecocide”: Framing War-Related Agricultural Destruction in Ukraine, Earth: Environmental Sustainability 2(1), 92–113 (2026), DOI: 10.53941/eesus.2026.100008.