Maks Romanov
Posts: 3
PM
|
Date sent: 2022/05/26 09:09:55
Quete
In early February, Nadiya Stetsiuk was looking forward to a profitable year. The weather had been good in 2021 and she saw bumper harvests of corn, wheat and sunflower seeds on her small farm in Ukraine's central Cherkasy region.
Prices on the international market were high and rising every day so she held on to some of her stock, to sell later. Then Russia attacked.
Her region hasn't seen the worst of the fighting - like 80% of the country's farmland, it's still under Ukrainian control - but the impact on her farm has been profound.
"Since the invasion, we haven't been able to sell any grain at all. The price here is now half what it was before the war," says Mrs Stetsiuk. "There might be a food crisis in Europe and the world but it's gridlock here because we can't get this food out."
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has described as "blackmail" an offer from Russia to lift its blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
Even before the war, the world's food supply was precarious. Drought affected wheat and vegetable oil crops in Canada last year, and corn and soybean yields in South America.
Covid had a big impact too. In Indonesia and Malaysia labour shortages meant lower harvests of palm oil, which pushed up vegetable oil prices globally.
At the beginning of this year, the price of many of the world's staple foods were reaching all-time highs. Many hoped that crops from Ukraine could help make up the global shortfall.
But Russia's invasion has prevented that. The Ukrainian agriculture ministry says 20 million tonnes of grain are now stuck in the country.
Before the war, 90% of Ukraine's exports left via deep ports in the Black Sea, which can load tankers large enough to travel long distances - to China or India - and still make a profit. But all are now closed. Russia has seized most of Ukraine's coastline and blockaded the rest with a fleet of at least 20 vessels, including four submarines.
|
