🌾 Ukraine rapidly running out of grain storage spaceUkraine could run out of room to store 8mn-11mn tonnes of its own grain by November, with the ports shut and the new crop still coming in as this year’s harvest gets underway in earnest.
"At the current limited pace of exports, we could reach a point in November where there is a shortfall in domestic storage capacity. This shortfall could range from 8 to 11mn tonnes," agrarian policy and food minister Taras Vysotsky told reporters on August 14, Interfax-Ukraine reported.
The range reflects how hard the corn harvest is to forecast, Vysotsky said, adding that the ministry is planning for a maximum yield.
This is the blockade's second-order effect, and the more damaging one. A country that cannot export loses revenue; a country that cannot store loses the crop itself. Grain left in the open degrades within weeks, and once storage is full the elevators stop taking deliveries - which means farmers stop harvesting, or harvest into the ground.
The fix Kyiv is reaching for is deliberately crude: grain storage bags, laid out in fields, each holding up to 250 tonnes. Ukraine has asked international partners to fund them and has about $10mn confirmed, with a further $25mn being finalised with the World Bank.
"That's 6mn tonnes or more," Vysotsky said, adding that with the funding counted in, Ukraine expects to cover the critical situation and secure enough capacity.
Even on the minister's own arithmetic that leaves a gap of up to 5mn tonnes, and it depends on money that has not all arrived.
The exports of grain volumes are already tanking. Ukraine shipped 590,000 tonnes of grain between August 1 and 12 - about 30% of what it needs to move Interfax Ukraine reported, on the ministry's own measure - after the sea corridor halted in late July.
Exports are down 76% year on year so far this month, and roughly 90% of Ukraine's agricultural exports normally leave through the Black Sea.
https://www.intellinews.com/ukraine-rapidly-running-out-of-grain-storage-space-461117/
