In mid-May, VOA Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze spoke with Alexandra Vasylenko, special envoy on coordination of humanitarian assistance to the minister for foreign affairs of Ukraine. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
The devastation of the war (in Ukraine) is affecting food security in the world. How can we estimate and assess what’s going on and how it would affect Ukrainian agricultural business and world business?
Given that Ukraine is one of the main exporters of grain — of wheat, corn, buckwheat and sunflower oil — the implications of this war will be really hard, and we will feel it not only this year but also in coming years, three to five years at least. We already started sowing campaigns in almost all regions of Ukraine, but because of a huge mine decontamination mission there, it is very insecure for our farmers to perform sowing campaigns. But they already started doing this, even in the Zaporizhzhia region close to the front line. They’re performing their duty in helmets and vests.
The problem is not only with the sowing campaigns. We have an acute shortage of fuel, which is required for sowing campaigns, and it will be required for harvesting. Russian troops are trying to shell our railway stations, and they are focusing on the main railway complex. They destroyed a lot of grain storage as well, so we need to find out how we can store grain before we export it.
We also have very limited logistics capacity right now from the south and southeast because our Black Sea ports are blocked by Russian troops and mines. And to be figuring out alternative logistics routes can be really different from looking at the south in Romania. You’re looking at Poland, and you’re trying to figure out alternative routes with the European Union, using multimodal connections such as grain cargo lorries and, of course, seaports.
We get what we can see. If COVID-19 worsens world hunger, this war will have even more effects. According to the first quarterly report of FAO (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization) for crops and production for harvest, already 44 countries in the world are experiencing hunger; almost plus seven countries have been added to this list.
Projections for the harvest season in Ukraine are still very high. But as I said before, this situation is really complex with logistics, and we do not know how it will unfold and how we can harvest. So, sowing campaigns have started, and we will try to do our best to provide the world with the grain and to keep the world food security on the same and stable level, but we need help — and need to see how we can solve our problems.
There is a lot of talk about Ukraine entering the European Union. Is Ukraine ready for it? Do you see this as an opportunity and possibility?
Ukraine is already a part of the huge and complex logistic partnership of Europe, and we are already one of the biggest trading partners of the European Union. And I think this situation is an opportunity to simplify procedures for both partners. And this is an opportunity.
What do you mean, “this situation”?
I mean, it’s a given situation. Because, you know, their integration into the European Union, and the trade agreement with the European Union, it took us years to proceed with it, and we were very, like, step by step integration with different types of quotas for different types of trade commodities, even in terms of food production. Yes, it’s for the grain, for oil, for poultry. For example, two years ago, we started this quarter to increase it for, for Ukrainian poultry.
That was a big issue, right?
It was a big issue, but we made it. And I think that both partners benefited from it. If we take a look at Ukrainian production in terms of European legislation and in terms of European expectation, even in terms of the European Green Deal, our production is already much, much more sustainable than European because we are not using so many different types of plant protection for our crops.
Ukraine is a transit country. It’s always been a transit country. And this is the moment when we can really use all these transport corridors, and Europe can really see how Ukraine can add value to the trades and to different types of economies.
Food system production is very complex. It’s logistics. It’s production, produce and manufacturing, growing, harvesting, planting, everything. And it’s really important for communities, for the environment.