ZHURIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Oleksandr Chubuk’s warehouse should be empty in anticipation of the new harvest, with his supply of winter wheat already shipped abroad. Instead, his warehouses in central Ukraine are stocked with grain he can’t ship because of the war with Russia.
The green ears of wheat are already ripening. Soon the horizon will look like the Ukrainian flag, a sea of gold under a blue sky. Chubuk expects to harvest 500 tons, but for the first time in his 30 years as a farmer, he is not sure what to do with it.
“Hope is the only thing I have now,” he said.
The war has trapped some 22 million tons of grain in Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, a growing crisis for the country known as the “granary of Europe” for its exports of wheat, corn and sunflower oil.
Before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine could export 6 million to 7 million tons of grain a month, but in June it shipped just 2.2 million tons, according to the Ukrainian Grain Association. It usually sends about 30 percent of its grain to Europe, 30 percent to North Africa and 40 percent to Asia, said Mykola Khorbachov, head of the association.
With the Russian blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, the fate of Ukraine’s upcoming harvest is in question. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says the war threatens food supplies for many developing nations and could worsen hunger for up to 181 million people.
Meanwhile, many farmers in Ukraine may go bankrupt. They are facing the most difficult situation since gaining independence in 1991, Khorbachev said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was working with the United Nations, Ukraine and Russia to find a solution offering safe corridors in the Black Sea for wheat supplies.
For now, Ukraine is trying less efficient alternatives to export grain, at least to Europe. Currently, 30% of exports pass through three ports on the Danube River in southwestern Ukraine.
The country is also trying to transport grain through 12 border points with European countries, but trucks have to wait in line for days, and Europe’s infrastructure still cannot handle such a volume of grain, Khorbachev said.
“It’s impossible to build that kind of infrastructure in one year,” he told The Associated Press.
Russia’s invasion also caused a spike in transportation costs. The price to deliver this year’s crop of barley to the nearest Romanian port of Constanta is now $160 to $180 a tonne, up from $40 to $45. Yet a farmer who sells barley to a trader receives less than $100 per ton.
Losses accumulate along with the harvest.
“Most farmers are at risk of going bankrupt very soon. But they have no other option but to sell their grain cheaper than its cost price,” said Khorbachev.
In addition to these challenges, not all farmers can sell their grain.
Before the invasion, Chubuk could sell a ton of wheat from his farm in the Kyiv region for $270. Now he can’t find a buyer even at $135 a ton.
“The whole system supports backup,” including storage options, said James Heneghan, senior vice president at Gro Intelligence, a global climate and agriculture data analytics company. The system was intended to support Ukraine’s exports, not store them.
With no money coming in for grain, future harvests are a challenge. “Farmers have to buy fertilizers, seeds, diesel fuel, pay wages,” Khorbachev said. “Ukrainian farmers can’t print money.”
The country is not yet exhausted when the harvest begins.
Ukraine has about 65 million to 67 million tons of commercial grain storage capacity, according to Khorbachev, although 20 percent of that is in Russian-occupied territories. Farmers themselves can store 20 million to 25 million tons, but some of this is also in occupied areas.
By the end of September, when the corn and sunflower harvest begins, Ukraine will face a shortage of storage capacity.
FAO recently announced a $17 million project to help address the storage deficit. Heneghan of Gro Intelligence noted that one temporary solution could be to provide farmers with silage bags for storage.
In the eastern and southern regions near the front line, farmers continue to work in their fields despite the threat to their lives.
“It can be finished in an instant by bombing or as we see now the fields are burning,” said Yuriy Vakulenko in the Dnipropetrovsk region, as black smoke could be seen in the distance.
His workers are risking their lives for little return, with storage facilities now refusing to accept their grain, Vakulenko said.
Ukraine had a record grain harvest last year, harvesting 107 million tons. This year, even more was expected.
Now, at best, farmers will harvest only 70 million tons of grain this year, Khorbachev estimated.
“Without opening the (Black Sea) ports, I don’t see a solution for the survival of Ukrainian farmers,” he said. “And if they don’t survive, we won’t be able to feed African countries.”
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Francesca Ebel, Valery Rezik and Alexander Stashevsky in Ukraine and Aya Batrawi in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed.
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