MYKOLAIV OBLAST Ukraine aEUR” Mykhailo Liubchenko’s homemade vodka saved some of his business.
Liubchenko (72), farms wheat and sunflowers along the frontlines of the Ukraine war’s south campaign. He claims he paid Russian soldiers with samogon (aEUR”) moonshine (aEUR”) so that they wouldn’t torch the fields of his farm or steal his equipment during the first weeks of war in February.
He said, “They were totally drunk.” “They didn’t steal or destroy anything.” Our Ukrainian forces drove them back the next day.”
Months later, burned Russian tanks and vehicles still line the farm roads that square his several-thousand-acre plots. Farmhands are alerted to any unexploded ordnance by red flags that sprout from the top of young sunflower shoots. In what appears to be a former military defense position, a rocket is perched on a tree trunk.
“I have 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) of winter wheat and barreley that I don’t know how harvest. He says he will probably light it on fire. “If I allow tractors and combines to work, the drivers could be blown up as there are still shells.”
Ukraine is a major food exporter and breadbasket in Europe. However, shipping routes through the Black Sea are being blocked by Russian warships as well as Ukrainian mines. The United Nations warns that the blockade will increase world hunger and leave Ukrainian farmers in the midst of a global and local crisis aEUR” just as the year’s harvest starts.
The U.N., Turkey, and other parties have failed to reach an agreement with Russia to allow exports to leave Ukrainian waters. Moscow offered assistance if the West lifted some sanctions and Ukraine removed its mines from the ports.
Although Ukraine was not included in the discussions, a senior Ukrainian official stated that it would soon be participating and expected the discussions to get more serious in July.
Global food prices are now at record levels, despite the fact that some commodities like wheat and corn have fallen since their peak.
Another record: 323 million people may be on the verge of starvation according to the Group of Seven global economic leaders on Monday. They warned that climate change and COVID-19 were contributing factors.
According to the statement, the war in Ukraine is “dramatically aggravating the crisis of hunger; it has triggered disruptions in agricultural production, supply chain and trade that have driven world food prices to unprecedented highs for which Russia bears immense responsibility.”
Officials from the European Union accuse Russia that it uses hunger as a weapon and call its blockade on Ukraine’s shipping ports war crimes. Josep Borrell, EU’s chief of foreign affairs, warned of “the danger of a great food shortage in the world,” especially in Africa.
Ukraine exported between 5 and 6 million tonnes of food per month aEUR before the war. More than 90% of this export went through Black Sea ports. In May, however, Ukraine exported only 1.8 million tonnes.
Mark Nugent, senior dry bulk analyst at Braemar shipping services, stated that there were a lot of vessels scheduled to arrive in Ukrainian ports.
Ukraine exported agricultural goods worth $27.8 million last year. Ukraine exported more than 20,000,000 tons of wheat and other cereal grain aEUR” 10% of all global totals. Ukraine is also a major producer of sunflower oil, meal and oil, as well as an exporter of corn.
Ukraine exported between 5 and 6 million tonnes of food each month before the war. In May, however, the country exported only 1.8 million tonnes. It exports about half of its cargo by rail to Poland, Romania, and Hungary.
According to Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry, the maximum exports by land would be approximately 2.2 million tonnes per month.
Today, half of Ukraine’s food shipments go to Poland, Romania, and Hungary via rail. The rest are transported by trucks. It’s more expensive to ship goods by road for farmers.
Oleksandr Tatarov (a farmer who cultivates rapeseeds, wheat, and barley in the vicinity of Bashtanka in Ukraine) said, “Right now, we’re preparing trucks and getting passports to our drivers who don’t have them.”
According to Tatarov, transporting barley from the port of Izmail in southern Ukraine to Reni and Reni “costs approximately 50%” of what Tatarov earns. NPR can hear explosions in the distance.
He claims he will test a truck shipment to these ports, where it could be loaded onto barges on the Danube River. However, he has heard that trucks can take weeks to unload.
Nearly one-third (or more) of Tatarov’s 8,600 acres is under occupation or shelling. He says, “We’ve pulled down the curtain on these fields.”
One of his farm garages was attacked by the Russians just a day before he meets NPR. One of his food storage units was destroyed by a shell.
According to Prime Minister Denys Khmyhal, Ukraine had already 23.5 million tonnes of grain and seed stored when the blockade started in June. This meant that Ukraine’s storage capacity was only about a third of its full potential, not including the silos located in Russian-occupied territory.
The Agriculture Ministry now anticipates that storage capacity will run out by October. They expect a harvest of seeds and grains to reach 60 million tonnes aEUR, or half the amount of last year.
NPR’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Markiyan Dimitrasevych says that part of our facilities are located in temporarily occupied territories. Part of them were also destroyed. “We know we will face a shortage of grain storages. … The deficit could reach 10-15 million tonnes.”
Biden stated that the United States would assist in building temporary facilities for Poland.
Tatarov and other farmers will continue to use silo bags to store up to 200,000 tons of their harvested grain and seeds in their fields. Vasily Khmilenko is one of the other growers looking for bins to rent.
He says, “I have never required storage before.” “The port in Odesa is close to us so when we harvested the grain, the trucks went straight to the fields and took it.”
Khmilenko claims that the harvested grain can’t be left in the fields unprotected because it would be destroyed by rain. Khmilenko is in negotiations with a company to store all of his yield, which he estimates at between 400-500 tons.
He said he hopes they’ll accept some grain as payment.
Liubchenko claims he’s a former military colonel who has demined. He points to a pile of ordnance that he said he had removed from his fields. He says that he removed the ordnance earlier in the season when the plants were smaller. He says it would be dangerous to do so now because taller plants block his view of ground.
He said he would store as much of the harvest as possible and wait for it to stop.
Khmilenko says that if he doesn’t sell his house this year, he will be out approximately $70,000. “If this is lost, it will be impossible for us to rebuild. He says that he paid too much for this business to be able to recover it.
Khmilenko claims that his farm is far away from the frontlines and that he is confident that Russian forces won’t reach it.
However, the danger of being attacked by shells and possible fire from them continues to haunt him. Russia has intensified its missile and shelling attacks in the region’s southern region, including recent attacks on Odesa and Mykolaiv food storage facilities.
Dmytrasevych states that “the most important thing is to de-blockade the seaport.” “Defeating the Russians is the only way to achieve that.” We need weapons, weapons, and more weapons.
