What happens between Ukraine and the United States on wheat
The United States has announced a plan to free Ukrainian wheat, but Kiev has dampened the enthusiasm. All the details
The United States, along with other Western officials, announced a plan to build temporary silos on the border with Ukraine to increase grain storage capacity and make distribution operations easier.
The goal is to avert a global food crisis and help reduce product prices . Furthermore, as Startmag wrote, the United States also has important interests given that the American companies Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge and Cargill are the major intermediaries of cereals and therefore also of Ukrainian wheat.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF BIDEN
“We will build silos, temporary silos on the borders of Ukraine, even in Poland. So we can move [the grain] from wagons to silos and from silos to wagons in Europe and get it to the ocean and then around the world. But it takes time, ”Biden said in a speech in Philadelphia, where he discussed possible solutions to rising food prices in the United States.
The Polish Deputy Prime Minister, Henryk Kowalczyk, who is also the Minister of Agriculture, Politico reports, called Biden's idea "very interesting", but also added that "this type of investment will take about three or four months to complete. completed".
HOW SILOS CAN HELP
Ukrainian farmers will start harvesting summer wheat over the next month, but they will have nowhere to store it. The existing silos are already full and more space will be needed until the grain can be exported.
The tons stopped in the ports due to the Russian invasion are now more than 20 million and the foreign ships blocked (some of them loaded with grain), according to the Guardian , are about 84.
As the president of the United States reiterated, transporting Ukrainian wheat by land is very complicated and can only solve the problem to a small extent because the quantities exported by sea before the war were much larger, however, the silos would buy time in Kiev. .
KIEV'S ANSWER
But Kiev, which according to Politico had not been informed of the plan before Biden's announcement, replied through Andriy Yermak, chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “This is only one of the useful steps to ensure food security. But we also need a green corridor for our ports ”.
For Ukraine, in fact, according to Reuters , the best way to restart grain exports is through shipments from the Black Sea.
Sergey Bratchuk, spokesman for the Black Sea military administration, said in an interview with World Grain that Ukraine needs the help of its allies to put an end to Russian domination on the Black Sea: " unblocking the port of Odessa is the most important thing to relaunch exports ”.
Ports in Ukraine, Bratchuk reported, “are partially damaged or destroyed, but the partially functioning ones cannot yet be used due to the blockade. One of the largest grain terminals, Nika-Tera, in Mykolaiv, was destroyed just a few days ago ”.
The terminal, writes World Grain , "had the capacity to store up to 500,000 tons of grain at a time and was equipped with three loading machines".
BECAUSE IT IS URGENT TO UNLOCK THE WHEAT
Moscow's attitude is seriously threatening the Ukrainian economy, already tested by the destruction caused by the war, as well as aggravating the food crisis in the world. FAO believes that the world has about 10 weeks left to find a solution, at which point the next grain harvest should begin and until then the silos should be emptied.
Food shortages and soaring prices also risk being the trigger for riots, political unrest and mass migration from Africa, the Middle East and Central America. A situation of extreme destabilization that certainly would not mind Moscow.
Indeed, the blockade of grain exports, writes the Guardian , has contributed to what analysts have called a "perfect storm" for global food supplies, as farmers face rising costs of oil and fertilizers and the persistent effect of work restrictions due to Covid-19.
THE UNITED NATIONS AND TURKEY TALKS WITH RUSSIA
The United Nations and Turkey, separately, are having talks with Russia to free Ukrainian grain. In particular, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is trying to broker what he calls a "package deal" to resume Russian and Ukrainian exports, according to Reuters . So far the United Nations has called the talks with Russia "constructive".
Ankara also would like sea transport to be resumed, which it would guarantee and escort for the passage in an area which, however, has yet to be cleared of naval mines, for which Russia and Ukraine continue to accuse each other .
It is no coincidence that Biden said that wheat could not "go out of the Black Sea because it would be swept away by the water", referring precisely to floating mines.
Furthermore, according to Politico , officials in the Biden administration and US lawmakers are skeptical of Russia's efforts as it calls for an easing of sanctions in return.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/che-cosa-succede-fra-ucraina-e-stati-uniti-sul-grano/ on Thu, 16 Jun 2022 12:59:33 +0000.