Farmers across Ukraine are unable to sow their land while also struggling to ship harvested crops out due to a Russian blockade of the country’s critical Black Sea ports.
Harvest Holdings possessed almost 500,000 acres of Ukrainian farmland in 2014. They had some smaller fields near Kyiv and owned huge swaths of land around Mariupol and in the eastern Donbas region that is now the focus of the war.
With few good solutions — one option put forward appears to be a risky naval escort — the United States and its allies have sought to make it clear who they feel is responsible. The lack of Ukrainian grain is pushing food prices up and pressing countries already facing shortages toward famine. Leaders at Davos emphasized the link between the blockaded ports of Odesa and the millions of people threatened with starvation in countries like Afghanistan, Haiti, Lebanon, Somalia and beyond.
Farm workers had maintained a schedule of eight hours of work, eight hours of service in territorial defense, and eight hours of sleep when Russian forces advanced toward the capital. Locals with Kalashnikovs still maintain strict checkpoints near fields and agricultural infrastructure. “We have a huge amount of grain that needs to be exported through ways that we’re not used to. That’s why we have queues at the land borders and the river ports are overloaded, which we’re mostly doing it through,” said Ivanyshyn, noting that the moment has caused huge price fluctuations. “I can’t disclose everything because it’s dangerous. Some of our competitors said too much and got bombed.”
Still, they are working to expand capacity there and investing in new grain elevators, Pertsovskyi said. The biggest challenge they face in addressing the grain shortfalls, however, isn’t Russian missile strikes — it’s train wheels. Lithuania is currently leading a charge to have a naval “coalition of the willing” break the blockade with a fleet that would escort ships loaded with grain from Ukrainian ports. The Lithuanians said the proposal was endorsed by Britain when the two countries’ foreign ministers met on Monday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, on Tuesday in which the two “discussed potential means to export Ukraine’s grain to international markets,” according to the State Department.
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