Grain shipments increase out of Ukraine, potentially helping to ease global food prices (PBS News Hour)
PBS Newshour produced a video discussing how President Zelensky on Thursday hosted Turkey’s President Erdogan and the UN Secretary-General Guterres, both architects of a deal last month that allows Ukraine to export food amid the war and a global food shortage. But has that UN-brokered deal been effective in achieving its goals? Senior research fellow Joseph Glauber was interviewed about these events. Regarding food exports, Glauber said the impact on the deal is small, but will hopefully get bigger. Only about a tenth of Ukraine’s grain has shipped. The desire is to have 20 million tons to move and there’s no room. It puts stress on the storage capacity. Even with the potential of exporting some of it out through the Black Sea ports. Prices have come down and part of that is getting grain out of Ukraine, but it is also because of Canada’s harvest, Russia’s exports, etc. “We will see a mix of buyers as things open up. A lot of grains, corn to China, Europe, wheat to the Middle East and North Africa. Ending the war and bringing back agricultural normalcy will help. Now, there is less production, lower prices for producers, and continued tight supplies. Droughts and other things could cause price spikes, too and cause a global food crisis as well.” Video also available on Thirteen, and YouTube.