At the start of his visit to Ukraine, Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Özdemir met his counterpart Mykola Solskyj for talks. “It’s about a sign of solidarity,” said the Green politician on Friday when he arrived at the ministry in the capital Kyiv.
Central topics should be help to stabilize the country’s agriculture in the Russian war of aggression. Germany is also working to enable Ukrainian grain exports in other ways, as usual exports via the Black Sea ports are blocked for the time being.
Özdemir then wants to visit farms to get an idea of the situation on the farms and the current needs of the Ukrainian agricultural sector. With his visit, he followed an invitation that his Ukrainian counterpart had extended at a ministerial meeting of the G7 group in Stuttgart in May.
The war has led to tight global agricultural markets and rising prices, and is also raising concerns about food security in some countries. Because Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat, among other things, mainly to North Africa and Asia.
According to the government in Kyiv, more than 23 million tons of grain and oilseeds cannot be exported due to blockades of Black Sea ports by Russia. Despite the war, however, 75 percent of the agricultural land from the previous year had been cultivated again.
