Ukraine grain crisis could cost $60 billion globally, minister warns

Joining me now is Taras Vysotsky, Ukraine's Minister for Agrarian Policy and Food. Sir, thank you so much for joining us on Euronews. Thank you for the invitation. Great to meet you. So, first, we know about the immense pressure on Ukraine's agriculture economy due to both strikes within the country on storage facilities, but also, of course, on the export routes. So, can I ask you, how serious is the situation now in the Black Sea? Are you facing a situation where Ukraine is no longer able to rely on its main maritime export corridor? Unfortunately, since the end of July, that's already for two months, the situation is really critical. We are not able to export agricultural commodities through our deep water ports of Odessa region. Why is it so critical? Just an example, in June 2026, 90% of agricultural commodities were exported through this channel. That means that the biggest and the main channel of export logistics has been closed since the end of July. And what can Ukraine's partners do here? Is it about providing more protection in the Black Sea? Is it about opening alternative export routes, for example, for the Baltics? Or are you at a point where you say, actually, we need a broken deal with Russia? We are currently working with our partners, including the European ones, simultaneously on a few tracks. One of them is to develop new solidarity lanes, that's alternative routes, through Danube River, through railway connections inland, through trucks and so on. It's very important. And so far, we have some progress. When we look at the September numbers, we can say that around 40-45% of export is done through these new solidarity lanes of what we need. Definitely, we keep working on protection, because we do understand the best guarantee instrument is to have enough military power to protect these routes from all of these rocket attacks. That's complicated. It's a long-term strategy, but we kept working on it and developing new ways of protection. And also, it's important to keep geopolitics. So, our president was at the United Nations Assembly. We are ready to create the safety conditions in the Black Sea for all of the civil goods, including Ukrainian agricultural commodities. We are open for it. And when it comes to a potential deal with Moscow, this has been done in the past. Do you think the conditions are there? Do you think Moscow could strike a reliable deal here? And what would be your red lines in such a deal? First of all, it should be internationally protected. In the previous years, we didn't sign any deal with Moscow. It was a deal between Ukraine and, for example, the United Nations and Turkey. So, of course, we can rely only on the trust of our international partners. That's why, first of all, we are talking with our international partners as possible mediators. Of course, as the situation shows of this year's full-scale invasion, we can never trust. So, even if it happens, we still have to develop our military power, protection mechanism, and keep vital or alive all of the alternatives. Because the reality is that we can never trust what's going to happen tomorrow after any kind of random deal is done. The risk, of course, is that we have big harvests within Ukraine, and we know Ukraine is a major agricultural producer, but then Ukraine cannot get this product to markets. Are you getting some support from your EU partners here? For example, I know you're pushing for increased quotas to sell your products into European markets. How are those negotiations going? Indeed, if the situation is like these days, we will not be able to export around 35 million tons of agricultural commodities. That's a huge amount. One of the ways is to process them as much as possible inside of the country and then export different products. That's why we have issued the kind request to the European Commission on the products for which the market on the European Union is deficit this year due to droughts and others, really to provide us temporarily one year additional market access to be able to compete with other set countries with these products. This could create for us the possibility to process more agricultural commodities inside of Ukraine and then export these products, for example, by trucks. So this is the additional logistic capacity. Do you feel, Minister, that European politics is playing into this though? Because we know major elections coming in Europe where agriculture policy and the complaints sometimes of European farmers will play a big role. I'm talking about France, Poland, for example. Do you think that's playing to your disadvantage in these talks? So we are making this talk these days, so it's hard to make the final assessment, what are the perspectives. But our idea is that there is none of the risk for the European farmers because the consumers need some products. Sometimes it's necessary to import because you can't not to feed your animals or not to produce your products. So our idea is to show that there is none of the additional pressure for European farmers. There's only Ukrainian possibilities to compete with other set countries without names on the European market. Minister, I want to ask you about the impact of all of this on food security, both within Ukraine but also outside because we know how important Ukraine is for the global markets. Do you fear food shortages, for example, going into this winter? So there are a few challenges in this respect. Basically, we have produced enough food inside of the country and actually Ukraine usually exports up to 70 percent of its production. So physically the food is available. What's the problem? We have constant attacks on the storage capacities, so we really have to think how to protect, save these products. And also, of course, for these savings and for storage we need sustainable electricity and energy supply. So also how to create the conditions that we can really create the necessary conditions for storage of these products. So physically it's enough, but the overall situation is still challenging. How to create the preconditions that this food is saved and is able to be transported to the final consumers? And you mentioned recently that in fact 90 percent of Ukraine's modern storage facilities in some regions of the country have been destroyed by Russian strikes. What kind of impact is that having on the security of supply within the country? All of such damages, first of all, increase the cost of food supply. So we see that the prices have increased because at such conditions when we have limited storage capacities, basic foods have to be transported directly from the production site to the supermarket. That means much more logistic costs, labor costs, fuel costs. That means higher prices for the consumers. So first of all, it is a negative effect on the consumers who have the stable incomes. So their incomes haven't gone, but they really have now to pay more for the same food before due to the storage attacks. And do you think that impact on pricing for consumers could be felt beyond Ukraine's borders as well if this crisis persists in the Black Sea? Actually, it's already happening. We can already see that on average the grain prices have increased by 25 percent. And the FAO, Global Food Index, proves this information. And this is a lot. 25 percent, it means if you multiply it for the overall grain and food consumption out of grain, within a year it could be even up to 60 billion U.S. dollars additional costs of all of the consumers throughout the world. Especially it's very critical for import countries like lots in Africa, South East Asia, which really depend on the import of food. And the poorest people then are going to afford less consumers. The price increase is already happening. Finally, Minister, just a final question. We see that Russia is really stepping up its strikes on Ukraine. The winter is coming. We've talked about a lot of these challenges. How fearful are you now, both for Ukrainian farmers in terms of the impact on them, but also broader for the country going into this winter? Are you prepared or do you fear big repercussions? Of course, during all of these almost five years of Russian invasion, we have been constantly preparing. Ukrainians are resilient, but it's very hard. Of course, the level of risks currently is the biggest since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. And it's very hard really to prepare just for everything. So first of all, the focus is on military air defense systems. It's very critical to have enough of military air defense systems to save all of this infrastructure. And you're confident that the funding will come for those needs as well? So far, the funding arrives. Also, we are thankful for our partners. We do receive the funding. Time is urgent. That's why we are asking and making everything possible to receive as much funding also in advance really to prepare for this winter. Okay, Minister Vysotsky, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for this talk.