(Bloomberg) -- Fields of grain in parts of southern Ukraine have been destroyed as a result of Russian shelling, according to local officials, adding to the damage facing the agriculture sector in a country known as Europe’s breadbasket. 

The attacks have sparked fires, wrecking crops due for harvest in parts of the Mykolayiv and Odesa regions, Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the southern command of Ukraine’s military, said during a briefing earlier this week. 

The national police estimate that around 600 hectares (1,500 acres) including wheat and rapeseed were burned in Zaporizhzhia after an air-strike Tuesday. Another 800 hectares were destroyed last week. 

While that amount accounts for a sliver of Ukraine’s arable land, it highlights the toll that Russia’s invasion has taken on the country’s farm industry. The affected area is near major Black Sea ports that traditionally ship Ukrainian grain across Asia, Africa and Europe. With those hubs blocked by the war, crop exports remain significantly restrained, stoking global food prices and leaving millions of tons of grain piled up.

Read: Russia, Ukraine See Initial Step Forward in Grain-Export Talks

In the Kherson region, shelling has caused large-scale fires daily, with hundreds of hectares for wheat and barley burned, the local police force posted on its Facebook page earlier this month. Winter crops like these are approaching harvest at this time of year, drying down in fields. 

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