Demining in July: Hundreds of cleared hectares and a hackathon to train AI

In July, mine action operators returned 330 hectares of agricultural land to use under 5 agreements concluded with the Humanitarian Demining Center. Last month, work began on almost 900 hectares.

"Step by step, we are increasing the area of land where farmers can sow, plant, and harvest. This is the basis for the resumption of activities in frontline communities. It means jobs, taxes paid, and the opportunity for people to do what they are good at without risking their lives. In early July, we met with community representatives and explained in detail the specifics of humanitarian demining and the Government's compensation program. Therefore, we hope that the number of applications submitted by farmers and their quality will increase, and we will manage to return even more land to use," said Ihor Bezkaravaynyi, Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture of Ukraine.

In total, as of the end of July, 76 contracts have been signed for the cleanup of 14,308.9 hectares of agricultural land worth UAH 853.1 million since the program began.

One way to increase the pace of demining is to introduce innovative technologies. That's why the Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture of Ukraine, together with the Demine Ukraine initiative, the Humanitarian Demining Center, and the Ukrainian company UADamage, held an AI Data Jam hackathon. The participating teams worked for two days to train artificial intelligence to automatically detect explosive ordnance on drone images.

"Operators are already using drones to conduct non-technical and technical surveys of territories. Separate teams work with trained neural networks that identify possible ERWs many times faster than humans. If to add the data collected by sensors, we can get a high-quality map that allows sappers to do their job faster and more efficiently," said Ihor Bezkaravaynyi.

Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has returned almost 2,000 km2 of de-occupied territories to productive use. The total area of cleaned up land is now 36,942 km2. At the same time, 137,058 km2 of Ukrainian land, including the occupied territories and water areas, remain potentially contaminated.