Eastern European countries faced with an excess of Ukrainian grain

It is noted that a number of EU countries had difficulties with the development of surplus grain in warehouses, which led to market destabilization. They propose to allocate additional funds from EU funds to solve the problem, reports the Associated Press.

This problem has been around for almost seven years now, says Nikolai Lychev, editor-in-chief of the Agrotrend.ru portal. Back in 2016, the European Union took a step towards Ukraine by zeroing out duties on the import of half of Ukrainian agricultural products. And a year ago, it further facilitated the export of agricultural products to Ukraine. At the same time, due to difficulties with maritime transport, Ukrainian food began to be imported to Europe by road and rail. For example, in November 2021, 6 thousand tons of corn were brought to Poland from Ukraine, and in November 2022 - 1.6 million tons. The numbers are incomparable, Lychev emphasizes. It was assumed that commodity flows would go further to Western Europe. But due to the logistics difficulties that have persisted since the pandemic, these goods have concentrated in Eastern European countries.

At the same time, the countries of Eastern Europe are themselves food suppliers, and their share of agriculture in trade is much higher than, for example, in Russia. In addition, due to sanctions, they have lost some of the distribution channels for products that previously went to Russia through Belarus. As a result, food in these countries is getting cheaper, which is good for the consumer, but negative for the producer, for whom fertilizers, energy carriers, etc., are also becoming more expensive. Romania or Bulgaria," the expert says.

In part, this is a lobbying initiative - under the pretext of local subsidence of agricultural markets in Eastern Europe, the governments of these countries are trying, among other things, to obtain funds for investment in transport infrastructure, the expert does not exclude.

At the same time, this situation does not affect the Russian market in any way, Lychev believes. Over the past decade, the markets of the Russian Federation and the European Union have become quite autonomous from each other. Now buyers of 80% of Russian grain are friendly or neutral countries.