Russia and Ukraine have signed an agreement to resume the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea already in the coming weeks. The agreement was signed in Istanbul with the mediation of Turkey and the support of the United Nations. The deal is significant for the global food supply, but also constitutes the first agreement between the two sides since the outbreak of fighting in February.
Ukraine, as you remember, is one of the largest exporters of wheat in the world, and since the Russian army closed the Ukrainian maritime space, the export of the grain has also been stopped. Millions of tons of wheat were stuck in the war-torn country and Ukrainian port cities such as Odessa were unable to ship the goods, causing a global wheat shortage and rising food prices.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Ukraine is the world’s leading producer of sunflower meal, sunflower oil and seeds. It is also the world’s leading exporter of these products. In terms of wheat production, Ukraine is the seventh largest in the world next to Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh. December wheat futures prices on the Paris Stock Exchange fell by about 5% after the deal was announced.
At the beginning of the year, a bushel of wheat traded at a price of about 7.6 dollars (a bushel is a unit of measure used to measure the volume of dry goods; 1 American bushel is equal to about 35 liters). The winds of war between Russia and Ukraine led to an increase in wheat prices to a level of about 8.5 dollars per bushel, on the eve of the fighting. In the middle of May, the peak in wheat prices was recorded and it stood at $12.78 per bushel.
Comments to the article(0):
Your response has been received and will be published subject to system policy.
Thanks.
for a new comment
Your response was not sent due to a communication problem, please try again.
Return to comment