Ukrainian farmers come to a standstill as fears of global food shortages surface

The Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens millions of tiny spring shoots that should emerge from dormant winter wheat stalks in the coming weeks.

If farmers fail to nurture these crops soon, far fewer tillers will sprout, jeopardizing a domestic wheat crop on which millions of people in the developing world depend.

The wheat was sown last autumn and, after a short period of growth, went dormant for the winter. However, before the grain comes back to life, farmers often spread fertilizer that stimulates the growth of secondary buds from the stalks.

Each stalk can have three or four suckers, which exponentially increases the yield per stalk of wheat.

But Ukrainian farmers, who produced a record grain harvest last year, say they now lack fertilizer, as well as pesticides and herbicides. And even if they had the materials, they can’t get enough fuel for their equipment, they add.

Elena Neroba, Director of Business Development at Kiev-based grain brokerage Maxigrain, said Ukraine’s winter wheat yields could fall by 15% compared to recent years if the fertilizer now. Some farmers warn that the situation could be much worse.

Ukrainian farmers told Reuters their wheat yields could fall by half, and perhaps more, with repercussions not just for Ukraine. Countries like Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen and others have come to depend on Ukrainian wheat in recent years. The Russian invasion has already caused cereal prices to shoot up 50% in the last month.

The Ukrainian agricultural crisis comes at a time when the value of food around the world had already been soaring for months due to global supply chain problems blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Food prices hit a record high in February and have risen more than 24% in a year, the UN food agency reported last week.

International food and feed prices could rise by up to 20% as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, leading to a rise in malnutrition around the world, the United Nations food agency said on Friday.

Ukraine and Russia are the main exporters of wheat, together accounting for about a third of world exports, almost all of which pass through the Black Sea.

Svein Tore Holsether, chairman of Yara International, which is based in Norway and is the world’s largest maker of nitrogen-based fertilizers, said he is concerned that tens of millions of people face food shortages due to the agricultural crisis in Ukraine.

“For me, it is not about whether or not we are entering a global food crisis. It’s how big the crisis will be”, he stated.

Ukrainian officials say they are still hopeful that the country will have a relatively successful year. Much of that hope rests with farmers in the west of the country, who, until now, have stayed away from the gunfire.

However, authorities are taking steps to protect domestic supplies and ensure the Ukrainian population is fed, dealing another potential blow to export shipments. Agriculture Minister Roman Leshchenko said on Tuesday that the country was banning the export of several basic products, including wheat.

Leshchenko has acknowledged the threat to Ukraine’s food supply and that the government was doing what it could to help farmers.

Vladimir Putin’s government claims it is carrying out a special military operation in Ukraine to demilitarize and capture dangerous nationalists. It has denied deliberately targeting civilian populations and infrastructure, despite documented attacks on hospitals, apartment buildings and railways.

Grain exports are a cornerstone of the Ukrainian economy.

In the coming weeks, farmers should start planting other crops as well, such as corn and sunflowers, but they are having a hard time getting the seeds they need, said Dykun Andriy, president of the Agricultural Council of Ukraine, which represents about 1,000 farmers who They cultivate five million hectares.

Andriy warned that fuel is the critical problem now. Unless farmers can get diesel to run their equipment, spring farm work will be impossible and this year’s crops will be doomed. “There is a great risk that we will not have enough food for our people.”

Maxigrain’s Neroba said farmers are facing fuel shortages because military needs take precedence.

Ukrainian farmer Oleksandr Chumak said little work is being done on his fields, some 200 kilometers north of the Black Sea port of Odessa. He farms 3,000 hectares of wheat, corn, sunflowers, and rapeseed. Although he had fuel to take his equipment to the fields, he recognized that he did not have enough fertilizer for all his crops nor herbicides.

“Normally we have maybe six to seven tons (of wheat) per hectare. This year, I think if we get three tons per hectare, it will be very good.Chumak commented. He added that he remains hopeful that farmers will find a way to grow enough food for their compatriots, but he does not expect much to be exported.

In northern Ukraine, he explained that friends of his have been reduced to scavenging fuel from a ditch that was filled with diesel after a Russian attack on a train spilled fuel from several tankers. Other friends, in the occupied areas near Kherson, are sifting through diesel from ambushed and abandoned Russian tanker convoys, Chumak said.

Currently, he spends much of his time preparing for a Russian assault. “I live in Odessa. Every day I see rockets fly over my house”.

Val Sigaev, a grain broker for RJ O’Brien in Kiev, who left the city last week, said it is not clear to what extent it will be possible to carry out the usual spring agricultural tasks: planting and fertilizing. High prices for natural gas – an important input for fertilizers – pushed up fertilizers, so some farmers had postponed purchases.

“Some believe that we could plant up to half the harvest. Others say that it will only be planted in the west and that what is produced will be strictly for Ukrainian needs.”Sigaev stated.

The situation is especially dire in the southern port city of Kherson, the first Russia captured after invading the country on February 24. The spring weather increases the urgency of the farmers: if they don’t take care of their fields now, this year’s harvest will be a failure.

Andrii Pastushenko runs a 1,500-hectare farm west of the city, near the mouth of the Dnipro River. Last fall they planted about 1,000 hectares of wheat, barley and rapeseed.

His farm workers now need to get into those fields, but they can’t, and they’ve lost access to fuel. “We are completely isolated from the civilized world and from the rest of Ukraine.”

Also, many of Pastushenko’s 80 workers cannot come to the farm because they live a few miles north, across the front line. The problems are compounded because the region is drier than other agricultural areas in the country and its fields need to be irrigated. And that also requires fuel.

Unlike many, Pastushenko has a stash of 50 metric tons of nitrogen-based fertilizer. However, with the fighting around him, he’s not sure that’s a good thing: the fertilizer is highly explosive. “If something falls from a helicopter, it could blow up the whole place.“, said.

Pastushenko fears that the harvest will be bad. Last year, his wheat and barley fields yielded about five metric tons per hectare. If he doesn’t spray insecticide – which he says he can’t get – and spread the fertilizer, he doubts he’ll get a third of that amount.

“I have no idea if we’ll be able to harvest anything. Something will come out of the land, but it won’t be enough to feed our cattle and pay our staff.“, it says.

Some 150 kilometers west of Pastushenko’s farm is the Black Sea port of Odessa, which remains under Ukrainian control. In times of peace, much of Ukraine’s agricultural exports reach the ships of the port, the busiest in Ukraine. Today, no one leaves and the city is besieged by Russian forces.

Much of the Ukrainian crop was to be exported to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Levant. According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), Ukraine supplies more than half of its imported wheat to Lebanon, 42% to Tunisia and almost a quarter to Yemen. Ukraine has grown to become WFP’s largest food supplier.

For some countries, rising prices could hurt both governments and consumers, due to state food subsidies.

Egypt, which has relied increasingly on Ukrainian and Russian wheat in the past decade, heavily subsidizes bread for its population. As the price of wheat rises, so will the pressure on the government to raise the price of bread, said Sikandra Kurdi, a researcher at the Dubai-based International Food Policy Research Institute.

The country’s food subsidy program costs about $5.5 billion a year. Currently, nearly two-thirds of the population can buy five loaves of round bread a day for 50 cents a month.

Other developing countries with similar subsidies will also grapple with rising wheat prices. In 2019, protests over rising bread prices in Sudan contributed to the ouster of the head of state, Omar al-Bashir.