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<p>Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.</p>
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
The success or failure of the Istanbul agreement to allow Ukrainian grain exports from Odesa ports is in Russia's hands, and the stakes are high as food insecurity continues to rise in the neediest parts of the world, Biden administration officials and lawmakers said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.
Ukrainian ports in Odesa will begin exporting grain despite the recent Russian missile attack that threatened to skuttle a deal to allow trade to resume, according to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
A deal struck Friday to allow Ukraine to resume shipping grain through its primary Black Sea ports has been thrown in question after Russian missiles hit a grain silo and other infrastructure at a major port in Odesa, according to U.S., Ukrainian and Turkish officials.
Officials representing Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations met Wednesday in Istanbul in an effort to forge an agreement to allow Ukraine to resume exporting its corn, wheat and sunflower seed oil from the country’s primary ports, three of which are in Odesa.
The forecast for U.S. wheat production got a boost Tuesday with bigger estimates for spring and durum, but global supplies are expected to remain at their lowest level since the 2016-17 marketing year, according to USDA's latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.
Russian military advances are threatening fields in southern and eastern Ukraine that are some of the most fertile in the country and the country's primary growing regions for winter wheat, according to market analysts and researchers.
The war rages on, but Ukraine is already looking ahead to the task of rebuilding the country, and a new estimate from the Kyiv School of Economics indicates the agriculture sector has already suffered $27.6 billion in damages.
Ukraine’s farmers are preparing to begin this year’s problematic summer harvest on the 75% of fields not under Russian occupation, but producers, analysts and political leaders are preoccupied with the broader question of where the grain will be stored as efforts falter to reopen exports through Black Sea ports.