More than a quarter of over a half a million tons of grain and other foodstuffs exported from Ukraine since a deal was struck to unblock the embattled country’s seaports has been shipped to Türkiye, the United Nations said.
As traffic through the Black Sea gains momentum, four more ships on Wednesday left Ukraine’s Chernomorsk and Odessa ports, carrying sunflower meal, sunflower oil and corn, Türkiye’s Defense Ministry said.
That lifts the total number of ships to leave Ukrainian Black Sea ports under the U.N.-led plan to free up desperately needed grain trapped by Russia’s war on its neighbor to 25.
The war and a halt to all Ukrainian grain shipments and most Russian shipments of grain and fertilizer added significantly to the global food crisis because both countries are major suppliers to world markets.
Developing countries have been especially hard-hit by supply shortages and high prices. Even though ships are now leaving Russia and Ukraine and some prices have dropped, the food crisis has not ended.
The first commercial ship left on Aug. 1 after Türkiye and the U.N. brokered a deal allowing Ukrainian supplies to be shipped to world markets to help alleviate the global food crisis. Three ports – Odessa, Chernomorsk and Pivdennyi – were unblocked with the accord, making it possible to send hundreds of thousands of tons of Ukrainian grain to buyers.
Around 563,317 metric tons of grain and other foodstuffs have been shipped from Ukrainian ports to several countries through Aug. 15, a U.N. statement said Tuesday, citing data compiled by the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC), set up to monitor the Black Sea shipping.
The center that includes staff from the four parties to the deal – Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye and the U.N. – said it has so far approved 15 ships traveling to Ukraine to pick up grains, foodstuffs and fertilizers.
Türkiye, Iran and South Korea were the destinations for 70% of exports so far, the center said, adding that vessels deviated from the maritime corridor on two occasions, whereupon their captains were contacted and advised to follow coordinates.
Türkiye received 26% of the shipments, the data showed, followed by Iran and South Korea with 22% each. Among others, China got 8%, Ireland 6% and Italy received 5%.
As of Tuesday, 451,481 tons of corn, 50,300 tons of sunflower meal, 41,622 tons of wheat, 11,000 tons of soybeans, 6,000 tons of sunflower oil and 2,914 tons of sunflower seed had been exported, the JCC said.
On Tuesday, the first freighter carrying a cargo of humanitarian food aid bound for Africa set off from Ukraine for Djibouti with supplies destined for consumers in Ethiopia. The U.N.-chartered ship named MV Brave Commander is loaded with 23,000 metric tons of wheat, accounting for 4% of total shipments so far.
The ship is expected to reach its destination in two weeks, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) deputy emergency coordinator in Ukraine, Marianne Ward, said, adding that the humanitarian agency had procured 60,000 metric tons of wheat thus far.
Further cargoes are likely to deliver food aid to countries in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa region, Ward said, adding that WFP was looking at all options to transport food out of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have accepted an invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and will meet Thursday in the western city of Lviv, not far from the Polish border.
The three leaders will review the grain deal and discuss ways to end the six-month-old war.
After the three-way meeting, and likely bilateral talks between Erdoğan and Guterres, the U.N. chief will travel on Friday to Odessa, one of the three Ukrainian ports now operating to ship grain. He will then travel to Istanbul on Saturday to visit the center coordinating the Black Sea shipping.
Despite the latest developments, the world still faces an unprecedented food crisis, the WFP warned, with up to 50 million people in 45 countries on the edge of famine.
Ukraine can export 3 million tons of grain from its ports in September and be able eventually to export 4 million tons a month, said Deputy Infrastructure Minister Yuriy Vaskov.
He said that Ukraine had received applications for 30 ships to come to its ports in the next two weeks to load grain while the total export volume so far was about 600,000 tons.
Despite the unblocking of ports, Ukraine’s grain exports are down 46% year on year at 2.65 million tons so far in the 2022/23 season, the Agriculture Ministry said this week.
Ukraine exported 948,000 tons of grain in the first half of August, down from 1.88 million tons in the same period a year earlier.