LONDON: The amount of grain leaving Ukraine is down, inspections of ships are half what they were four months ago, even though a UN-brokered deal has worked to keep food flowing to developing countries, and the ship's backlog is increasing as the Russian invasion approaches.

The inspections are being slowed down, according to Ukrainian and some American officials, but Moscow has denied this. Concerns are raised about the impact on those going hungry in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia — places that depend on readily available food supplies from the Black Sea region — if less wheat, barley, and other grain is exported from Ukraine, known as the "breadbasket of the world."

The difficulties arise as separate agreements that Turkey and the U.N. brokered last summer to maintain supplies coming from the warring countries and lower skyrocketing food prices are up for renewal next month. Additionally, wheat, other grains, sunflower oil, and fertilizer are all major exports from Russia, and officials there have voiced their displeasure over the delay in delivering these vital nutrients to crops.

According to the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul, under the terms of the agreement, food exports from three Ukrainian ports decreased from 3.7 million metric tons in December to 3 million metric tons in January. There, inspection teams from Turkey, the United Nations, Russia, and Ukraine make sure ships are carrying only agricultural goods and no weapons.

It comes after average inspections per day, which peaked at 10.6 in October, slowed to 5.7 last month, and 6 so far this month. This has contributed to a backlog of ships waiting to be inspected or join the Black Sea Grain Initiative in the waters off Turkey.

According to the JCC, there are 152 ships waiting in line, up 50% from January. Ruslan Sakhautdinov, head of the Ukrainian delegation to the JCC, noted that this month, the wait time for a vessel to be inspected after submitting an application was 28 days on average. Shipments are also impacted by variables like bad weather, which makes inspections difficult, shippers' requests to participate in the initiative, port activity, and vessel capacity.

According to William Osnato, a senior research analyst at the agriculture data and analytics company Gro Intelligence, "I think it will become a problem if the inspections continue to be this slow."
"By creating the bottleneck, you're sort of opening up the flow," he continued. "But as long as they're getting some out, it's not a total disaster."

Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister of Ukraine, and Oleksandr Kubrakov, the minister of infrastructure, said in a statement posted on Facebook on Wednesday that Russian inspectors have been "systematically delaying the inspection of vessels" for months.
"By creating the bottleneck, you're sort of opening up the flow," he continued. "But as long as they're getting some out, it's not a total disaster."

Russian inspectors have been "systematically delaying the inspection of vessels" for months, according to a statement posted on Facebook on Wednesday by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov. After harvesting a sizable wheat crop, Osnato also suggested that Russia might be slowing inspections "in order to pick up more business." Russian wheat exports more than doubled to 3.8 million tons last month from January 2022, before the invasion, according to data from financial data provider Refinitiv.

In November, December, and January, Russian wheat shipments were at or near record highs, up 24% from the same three months a year earlier, according to Refinitiv. In 2022–2033, it was predicted that Russia would export 44 million tons of wheat.


Officials from Russia have also expressed dissatisfaction that their nation's fertilizer is not being exported in accordance with the contract, casting doubt on the extension of the four-month agreement that is set to expire on March 18. Russian fertilizer has become stuck, according to U.N. officials, who hope the agreement will be extended.

“I think we are in slightly more difficult territory at the moment, but the fact is, I think this will be conclusive and persuasive,” Martin Griffiths, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told reporters Wednesday. “The global south and international food security need that operation to continue.”

Bakery manager Tolulope Phillips in Lagos, Nigeria, has personally experienced the effects. He claims that since the Ukraine conflict started, the price of flour has increased by 136%. Nigeria, a major buyer of Russian wheat, has experienced an increase in the price of bread and other foods.

 According to Phillips, "this is typically unstable for any business to survive." "You must adjust your prices to reflect this increase, which affects more than just flour; it also affects sugar, flavors, the cost of diesel, and the cost of electricity." Consequently, production costs have generally increased.

After reaching record highs in 2022, global food prices, including wheat prices, have now returned to levels seen prior to the Ukraine War. Because consumers are paying in dollars in emerging economies that depend on imported food, such as Nigeria, Osnato claimed that weakening currencies are keeping prices high.

Additionally, food was already expensive before Russia invaded Ukraine, which made the food crisis worse because droughts had a negative impact on crops everywhere from the Americas to the Middle East, according to Osnato.

He predicted that prices would likely remain high for more than a year. Good weather and a few successful crop seasons are now required in order to become more at ease with global supplies of a variety of grains and "see a significant decline in food prices globally."