The Ukraine, the former ‘Breadbasket of the Soviet Union’, is now literally a few sandwiches short of a picnic. According to reports, ‘bread cards’ - a kind of ration card - will soon appear in Kiev.

‘Bread cards are being introduced in Ukraine and the poorer residents of the cities will get them in early August. The cards will be given to the poorest with the income below the official sustenance level. There are 100,000 of them in Kiev.’

‘Thanks to the cards, the people will be able to buy certain sorts of bread cheaply should prices rise, said Vasily Yastrubinsky, who heads the price policy department of the Kiev administration.’

In this time of need, however, most of Ukraine’s rich black soil is only growing weeds. In fact, the Times estimates over 23m hectares of former Soviet farmland - imagine a field the size of the UK - is lying fallow.

London-listed Landkom suggests that, with the right tractors of course, the Ukraine could even provide a seventh of the world’s food supplies. Yet its government has invested less than $3bn in agriculture since 1991. Meanwhile protectionist tariff barriers the world over keep cheap food out as well as in, making highly suspect, genetically modified grain more attractive than the real thing to Ukraine’s potential markets .

Another problem is the Ukrainian law passed in 2001, prohibiting the transfer or sale of farmland by anyone, foreigner or Ukrainian. Abandoned soil just stays that way, and new investors can’t bring efficiency and profitability. Even with vast wheatlands on its doorstep, the Kiev Bread Company reckons it can’t turn a profit and will close.

One hope is that Ukraine’s ‘Gas Princess’, with her currant bun hairdo, may discover that there are as many personal fortunes to be made in agribusiness as in the energy sector, and suddenly become interested. But right now, she’s busy with a Black Sea shelf scandal.