Miller Magazine Issue: 150 June 2022

30 MILLER / JUNE 2022 NEWS Ukraine is seeking ways to get grain and vegetable oils out of the country by breaking a months-long blockade of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea by the Russian navy and moving more by land. The war, together with Western sanctions against Russia, have sent the price of grain, cooking oil, fertilizer, and energy soaring. That in turn is threatening a glob- al food crisis as many countries count on Russia and Ukraine for more than half of their wheat im- ports, including some of the poor- est. Russia and Ukraine together account for nearly a third of the global wheat supply, and their im- portance has been underscored by an Indian export ban and adverse crop weather in North America and Western Europe. Ukraine is also a major exporter of corn, barley, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil, while Russia and Belarus — which has backed Mos- cow in the war and is also under sanctions — account for over 40% of global exports of the crop nutri- ent potash. Grain is one of Ukraine's main industries, with exports total- ing $12.2 billion in 2021 and ac- counting for nearly a fifth of the country's exports. Prior to the war, Ukraine exported 98% of its cereals and oilseed via the Black Sea, at a rate of up to 6 million tonnes per month. Typically, only a fraction of its exports went by rail, where transport costs are higher. But with the ports blocked and the railway system unable to cope with the extra volume, the country is currently exporting between 1-1.5 million tonnes only per month. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of using food as a weapon in Ukraine by holding "hostage" supplies for not just Ukrainians, but also millions around the world. The Kremlin says it is the West that triggered the crisis by slapping sanctions against Moscow. According to a U.N. food agen- cy official, nearly 25 million tonnes of grain were stuck in Ukraine as of early May due to infrastructure challenges and the naval block- ade. As prices surge, U.N. agen- cies are having to cut food rations for refugees and displaced peo- ple by up to half in parts of the Sa- hel, for example, due to a massive funding shortfall. Exporting by train is a challenge because the Ukrainian rail system operates on a different gauge to European neighbors such as Po- land, so the grain has to be trans- ferred to different trains at the border where there are not many transfer or storage facilities. Kyiv has also been stepping up efforts to ship via the Roma- nian Black Sea port of Constan- ta. But as of mid-May, only about 240,000 tonnes of grain — or 1% of the volume stuck in Ukraine — had passed through, its man- ager Florin Goidea told Reuters. Re-routing grain to Romania in- volves transport by rail to ports on the Danube River and loading cargoes onto barges for sailing toward Constanta — making the process complex and costly. Western powers have been discussing the idea of setting up "safe corridors" to allow grain Ukraine looks for routes to get its grain supplies out The key machine for bagging food products into valve bags – clean and fast. Contact: Phone: +49 251 9796 252 E-mail: sales@behnbates.com www.behnbates.com Our INTEGRA ®