\n\n“In peacetime, Ukraine\u2019s food exports were enough to feed 400 million people. Its farmers supplied a tenth of the wheat and half the sunflower oil sold on world markets. Its shipments of grains and oilseeds through the Black Sea fell to zero last March, from 5.7 million metric tons in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For net importers the impact was immediate and direct. Egypt and Libya had imported two-thirds of their cereals from Russia and Ukraine, for instance. Other countries were hit by the fallout: Prices shot up, first in response to the invasion, and again as countries like India imposed bans on grain exports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne of the cruelest ways in which Putin has used the weapons of war to impose costs on people around the world is the ways in which his early blockade of Black Sea ports raised prices for hungry people in dozens of countries around the world,\u201d Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a close ally of President Joe Biden and who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coons noted the U.N., Turkey and Ukraine\u2019s work to forge the Black Sea grain deal has reduced some of the overwhelming strain on global food prices, \u201cbut not enough yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Ukraine, farmers could not sell their crops after a bumper harvest before the war left grain stores brimming. The next harvest, already in the ground, had nowhere to go, said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The standstill to exports also endangered the home front. Before the war, almost half of the country\u2019s budget stemmed from exports, and nearly half of those exports were agricultural, according to Dmytro Los of the Ukrainian Business and Trade Association. \u201cSo don\u2019t forget that, during the war, we lost almost 45-50 percent of GDP,\u201d Los said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To stave off starvation abroad and rescue Ukrainian farmers, the EU set up overland \u201csolidarity lanes\u201d to help bring food exports out through Eastern Europe. And, in July, the U.N. and Turkey mediated the deal to allow safe passage for Ukrainian food shipments through the Black Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some 21.5 million tons of Ukrainian produce have been transported under the initiative, enabling the World Food Programme to deliver valuable aid to countries like Ethiopia and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has helped ease some of the pressure on global food prices \u2014 although they remain high \u2014 while ensuring Ukraine\u2019s agriculture sector, a leading driver of its economy, doesn\u2019t collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very important for Ukraine, but it is even more important for the world,\u201d said Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian MP who represents Odesa \u2014 one of the few ports covered under the current agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n