News From Agro-Industrial Complex

The Black Sea Grain Initiative is not blocked, work is underway to continue it, UN system coordinator in Ukraine Denise Brown said.

Since the beginning of this year, Ukraine has shipped 194.4 thousand tons of agricultural products to Africa on 8 vessels, including 46.5 thousand tons of wheat. In particular, the fourth vessel as a part of the initiative «Grain from Ukraine» has recently left the port of Chornomorsk. The name of the ship is AMIRA HANA and it will deliver 30 thousand tons of wheat to the port of Djibouti, and from there the Ukrainian grain will be shipped to Ethiopia. In total, Ukraine has already delivered 238.3 thousand tons of wheat to Ethiopia, which is on the edge of famine.

17.8 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products on 659 vessels have been exported from the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi to 40 countries since August 1, 2022. Since the grain deal was agreed 3 ports had sent 659 ships with food to Africa, Asia, and Europe, and 643 - received new ones for loading with products from Ukrainian farmers.

If the corridor had functioned fully, Ukraine would have exported at least 25-29 million tons of foodstuff to world markets. Thus, since October, Ukrainian ports have been forced to work at half their capacity, the volume of the fleet entering the ports for loading has decreased, and the volume of exports has decreased by 3 million tons per month.

The main reason is the purposeful sabotage of inspections of ships in the Bosporus by the Russian side, which leads to a consistently long queue of more than 100 ships.

The volume of exports of grain and pulses crops from Ukraine in 2022/23 MY as of January 16 amounted to 24.47 million tons, which is 10.6 million tons or 30% less than last season. This is evidenced by the data of the State Customs Service published by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.