Fields of sunflowers burnt brown under blue skies are ready for harvest -- but artillery and rocket attacks are stopping farmers in east Ukraine's frontline villages from gathering their crops.

Ukraine is the world's biggest exporter of sunflower oil, with more than half the global market, but fighting between separatist and government forces has left fields strewn with mangled metal shell casings and torn up clumps of mud.

On the dirt road between Vilkhivka and Zuevka, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the flashpoint city of Donetsk, an unexploded rocket sticks javelin-like in the earth and unharvested sunflower fields sway in the breeze.

Rebels in the area accuse the Ukrainian army of indiscriminate fire, with villagers staying close to home, ready to hide from the shelling in their basements.

"We're not stopping the local people from harvesting their crops but they're too scared to come out," says local rebel commander Vasiliy Petrovich as he drives past the sunflower fields, without a farmer in sight.

The sunflower is Ukraine's chief oilseed crop, generating export income of $3.28 billion in 2013 according to government figures.

Analysts say overall yields in Ukraine will remain high despite the conflict, with the sunflower seed crop totalling more than 10.2 million tonnes this year compared to 11 million in 2013/14.

The Donetsk and Lugansk regions of eastern Ukraine account for just 15 percent of the country's total sunflower seed production.

But those regions are facing a 20-30 percent crop loss, according to analysts, although the majority of harvesting is going ahead.

However, it will be the smaller farmers who are too scared to harvest or have nowhere to sell their crops who suffer most.

"I think that small farms will go bankrupt this year and next year they will not plant crops," says Yulia Garkavenko, head of oilseeds and vegoils at the consulting agency.

Source - http://www.mysinchew.com/