Nearly 25 million tonnes of grain are stranded in Ukraine and cannot be transported due to logistical problems and blockaded Black Sea ports, including Mariupol, a UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official said today.

The embargo is considered one of the factors behind high food prices, which reached record levels in March after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, before receding slightly again in April, according to the FAO.

Ukraine was the world’s fourth-largest exporter of maize in 2020/21 and the sixth-largest exporter of wheat, according to the International Grains Council.

“It is an almost bizarre situation we are currently seeing in Ukraine with almost 25 million tonnes of grain that could be exported but cannot due to lack of infrastructure and port closures,” said Josef Schmidhuber, deputy chief of staff of the FAO Directorate of Trade and Commerce in an online briefing for journalists from Geneva.

Schmidhuber said that full silos could lead to shortages of storage space during the next harvest in July and August.

“Despite the war, the harvest conditions do not seem so terrible. This could really mean that there is not enough storage capacity in Ukraine, especially if there is no wheat corridor for export from Ukraine,” he said.

Another source of concern is that according to reports some grain warehouses have been destroyed in the conflict in Ukraine, he said, without giving details.

also read

Russia’s Admiral Makarov warship has been hit, Ukrainian media report