> U.S. to Buy Ukraine Grain, as Ship Traffic Increases
> By William Mauldin & Jared Malsin, Aug. 16, 2022, WSJ
>
> The U.S. Agency for Int'l Development is spending more than $68 million to
> purchase and ship Ukrainian grain in the largest such export deal since
> Russia's invasion this year and the start of a July agreement to allow for
> renewed shipments from Ukraine's Black Sea ports.
>
> USAID is providing the funds to the World Food Program, a United Nations
> agency that historically gets the biggest part of its grain from Ukraine, to
> purchase, ship and store up to 150,000 metric tons of wheat, the agency
> said.

In some outlets, one can come across phrases like "Ukraine and Russia
are two of the world's biggest wheat exporters" and the like. Such a
claim is inaccurate. Actually, Russia was the world's biggest wheat
exporter recently, and in some years the US and Canada were close to
it. The Ukraine was in the second tier of the exporters, together with
France, Australia and Argentina. The Ukraine's share of the world
total wheat exports in the previous years was about 8%.

Currently, the Russian military have managed to occupy about half or
somewhat less than half of the wheat fields in the [former] Ukraine.
It means that the amount of wheat that may be presently supplied under
the Kiev regime's control may be estimated as 4-5% of the world total.
Given that it can be brought out not only through the Black Sea ports,
the impact of "unlocking" of those some ports may be estimated as 2-3%
of the world total. It's not so critical globally. The big Atlanticist-
driven hype about "unlocking ports" is very disproportionate to its
real significance in the context of the "world food crisis" narrative.

In turn, the wheat from the fields occupied by Russia, does not go to
waste. All the fields have some private owners or renters. The harvest
is their property. Available way for the local farmers is to sell
their harvest to Russia's big scale agro-dealers, and that's what they
do. I.e. this wheat enters the market through Russian resellers.

The Kiev regime interprets buying of the wheat from the local farmers
as "theft", and calls others not to buy "the stolen wheat", which is
irrelevant, since Russia can use it simply for domestic consumption.

More real issue is not the "blocked grain" as such, but the fact that
the massive "sanctions" introduced against Russia, in combination with
other factors, backfired so that various food producers in various
places now face higher costs for fuel /fertilizers /transportation etc
and it all contributes to lesser productivity and higher food prices.
Also, it all promises a longer-term fallout. E.g. as some farmers have
to reduce livestock today, it means higher meat prices in the future.