As Ukrinform reported, deputy chairman of Ukrainian Agrarian Council Denys Marchuk talked about this on the air of Ukrainian Radio.
“Until yesterday, the Danube was a key alternative route for us, but the port of Reni was also attacked. Accordingly, this creates additional tension with the export of grain in this direction. But after the Black Sea Initiative, small river ports are a direction that gives us the opportunity to potentially export grain every month. Already today this amount is 2.5 million tonnes and there is a potential to grow by another million tonnes. Also, our land routes are railways and roads. But there are difficulties related to the blockade of Ukrainian imports up to five of Eastern European countries, which reduced the flow of transport in this direction. For example, before the ban on imports, Ukrainian railways could transport over 1 million tonnes per month, and by road 600,000-700,000 tonnes/month. After this ban, the railways could transport about 600,000 tonnes, and cars – within 200,000 tonnes, that is, these are very low indicators,” Marchuk said.
According to him, it is important today in the process of negotiations with the European Commission to insist that the announced bans be canceled.
“Last year, the difficulties were greater. We did not have exports for half a year, and we had a very large amount of transitional balances. They were over 20 million tonnes. In all these conditions, we had to quickly look for alternatives. But this is not done quickly. The work started only in August, when the Black Sea initiative started working. As for the land elevators, they are attractive for investment in the west of Ukraine, but the investments stopped after the ban on the import of Ukrainian products. De facto, when you do not have the opportunity to move your products, having built such a large number of warehouses, you do not know what to do with them. Secondly, these are large investments that need to find investors today. In the conditions of war, they are not so easy to find, as from time to time Russian shelling also happens in the western directions of our country,” the deputy chairman of Ukrainian Agrarian Council stated.
In his opinion, the enemy is deliberately hitting the agricultural infrastructure. “Russia understands that Ukrainian grain is one of the key directions of Ukraine’s potential export, which gives money, and they really don’t want to see Ukrainian grain. In fact today, by blocking the Black Sea, they are artificially raising the price of grain in the world so that later offer their grain to poor countries, and at high prices,” he added.
Marchuk is convinced that the world should provide Ukraine with more weapons to avoid a food crisis.
“Ukraine needs more air defense systems and weapons to repel the enemy and make them weaker. Unfortunately, the world somehow reacted very weakly and, as a result, also became hostages of Russia’s war in Ukraine, as the war of aggression is not only against our state. It is food aggression and food terrorism to the whole world, which will lead to an increase in food prices. Therefore, food inflation may also increase. For poor countries, there will be a problem with increasing risks of hunger. The possibility of waves of migrations is not excluded. People will go to more prosperous countries, in particular the European Union. A consistent connection arises due to the idleness of the Black Sea initiative. In these conditions, it is necessary to speed up armaments,” he emphasized.
According to him, in the world, the price may increase compared to last season. “Then prices increased by over 20%, when there was no Ukrainian export. Therefore, if the blockade continues, I do not rule out that we can return to last year’s indicators and maybe even a little more,” the expert said.
Regarding this year’s harvest, Marchuk emphasized that Ukrainian farmers would harvest 6% less than the previous year, “but these are still quite good indicators (within 69 million tonnes of grain and oil crops).”
“This creates an additional opportunity for export potential and guaranteeing food security. We need within the range of 18-19 million tonnes to provide domestically. Everything else can be directed to exports to obtain foreign exchange and support the country’s economy. In addition, there are still transitional balances in Ukraine today. There are about 9 million tonnes of grain and oilseeds. Therefore, the export potential can amount to over 50 million tonnes. This will potentially result in financial income as last year (in the range of USD 20 billion),” he summarized.