UKRAINE – Turkey has brokered a deal between Russia and Ukraine that will guarantee the safe passage of Ukraine’s grain in the black sea currently controlled by Russian naval forces.
Russia had earlier threatened to withdraw from an earlier wartime agreement citing an alleged drone attack against its Black Sea fleet in Crimea.
Ukrainian grain exports in the first 17 days of October were just 2.4% lower than in the same period of 2021 despite the closure of several seaports and the Russian invasion, agriculture ministry data showed.
Fears were high in the commodities markets that these figures would plunge once again if Russia made good its threat to blockade Ukraine shipments once again.
To calm markets and secure the availability of grain in the global markets, a high-level delegation from Turkey led by President Tayyip Erdogan brough the warring sides together and managed to broker the latest grain pact.
In announcing that Russia would rejoin the grain pact, President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had received assurances that Ukraine would not use the humanitarian corridors to attack Russian forces.
Putin praised Turkey’s mediation efforts to get the deal back on track, as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “neutrality in the conflict as a whole”
Erdogan said shipments would resume Wednesday, prioritizing those to African nations, including Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan.
That’s in line with Russia’s concerns that much of the exported grain had ended up in richer nations, since Moscow and Kyiv made separate agreements with Turkey and the U.N. in July.
Australia ramps up feed barley exports
Meanwhile, data coming from Australia has revealed that the country exported 7,196,296t of feed barley in 2021-22 driven by increased appetite from Saudi Arabia, the country’s largest export market.
According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Saudi Arabia imported 3.2Mt for the year, accounting for close to half of Australia’s 2021-22 feed barley exports.
Japan was the only other seven-digit importer, importing about 1Mt during to the 2021/22 market year.
September feed barley exports at 662,421t hit a monthly high for the back half of the shipping year, as did shipments to Saudi Arabia on 335,543t.219
For Malting barley, exports were 875,107, according to data from ABS with Mexico at 317,288t emerging as the largest market for Australian malting barley.
During the market year, India popped up as a fledgling market for Australian feed and malting barley now that some phytosanitary issues have been resolved.
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