50 million tonnes of grain could be produced in Ukraine

2022. August 1.

As our staple food, cereals are a strategic issue.
A country’s ability to supply its people with this very important crop is fundamental to its life.
Since our country is not self-sufficient in cereals, it can only import them to ensure that sufficient quantities are available.

One of the big suppliers is neighbouring Ukraine, where, unfortunately, as we know, there is a war going on.
This has an impact on the crops, harvesting and transport there.
In Hungary, too, we are concerned about the development of the production of cereals, which are a staple foodstuff, and where the war situation has already caused serious disruption.
Ukraine’s First Deputy Minister for Agricultural Policy and Food has informed us that they currently expect that they will not be able to reach the previous year’s 85 million tonnes, but that it is likely that they will be able to reach at least 50 million tonnes.
Despite the difficult circumstances, they now expect this year’s harvest to exceed their expectations and to be better than the average of the last five years.
Achieving the 50 tonnes will depend to a large extent on how their maize crop develops.
However, this will only be realised in October.
As even this crop is well above the country’s requirement of 20 million tonnes, there will still be 30 million tonnes left, which will be exported in any case.
The war conditions are making the situation in Ukraine very difficult, but every effort is being made to produce as much grain as possible and to export it.
They have already encountered major problems with the sowing, but with good organisation and attention they have managed to control the situation.
The deputy minister also provided further figures, saying that despite all the difficulties, 350,000 tonnes of agricultural produce were exported in the month of March and 1 million tonnes the following month.
In June, they even surpassed this, with exports exceeding 2 million tonnes.
Their situation is also made more difficult by the fact that they cannot use the Black Sea ports and have to find other means of transport. He stressed that within the cereals, their wheat production is of food quality, which also means that it is suitable for human consumption, flour, bread and pastry.
However, wheat for animal production is only for animal feed and is not suitable for human consumption.
In the current political situation, given the war conditions, it is difficult to forecast, but it now seems that the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is working to reopen the ports in Odessa in southern Ukraine to facilitate transport and help prevent global famine.
Unfortunately, the Black Sea ports have been closed because of the war, which also means that the grain cannot be exported and has to be stored in silos.
We are talking about millions of tonnes.
Ukraine has been a big exporter in the past, shipping to the Middle East and North Africa.
In figures, that means that before the war started, 51 million tonnes left Ukraine through its ports in the 8 months before the war.
It is feared that if they are not reopened, the salted grain will be destroyed, while in other areas starvation has struck.
The WFP’s executive director is trying to get the ports opened as the only way to feed people with starving stomachs.
At present, it is estimated that 276 million people on the planet are hungry.
The contrast between the full grain silos and the starving millions is stark.
And 44 million people already face virtual starvation.
Their numbers are expected to rise by another 3 million if the Ukrainian-Russian war does not end soon.
Food prices in the US and Europe are already sky high.
Even Western households with much more purchasing power are already feeling the pinch, not to mention Hungarian housewives.
The world’s biggest agricultural producers, including the EU, the US, Canada and Australia, the emperors of world agriculture, have issued a joint declaration for 2022.
In June 2022, the world’s agricultural powers, the USA, the US, the USDA and the world’s agricultural champions declared that they would ensure world food security despite war, that food would be everywhere in the world.
They pledged that there would be no restrictive measures, that food markets would remain “open, predictable and transparent, and that no unjustified restrictive trade measures would be imposed” on either agri-food products or on inputs essential to agricultural production.
But that was a month ago.
Since then, the Ukrainian grain lost has had to be replaced from other sources, and the losses are already huge.
World Food Programme participants are trying to make up the shortfall by removing these products from the export ban and export restrictions.
Unfortunately, the current situation is unlikely to improve in the near future, and hunger in parts of the world is continuing to deepen.