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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Ukrainian farmers will begin harvesting millions of acres of winter wheat in July, but if Ukraine is unable to export it, the country’s economy will likely collapse and the hundreds of millions of people that depend on receiving that grain will suffer even worse than they are now, United Nations World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley said Wednesday.
Ukrainian farmers are short on diesel, fertilizer and manpower. They’ve been bombed, occupied, had their fields mined and silos and tractors destroyed by the Russian military. They've even had their grain robbed and sold overseas while they themselves are struggling to export because of a Russian blockade at ports, sources tell Agri-Pulse.
The U.S. exported about $49.2 billion worth of ag commodities in the first quarter of 2022, a record for shipments in the first three months of a year and setting the pace for what could be an annual record, according to new data from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
President Biden’s bid to induce more double cropping of wheat and soybeans would likely have just a modest impact on production, according to an analysis by the American Soybean Association.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack said USDA is walking a fine line as it navigates competing pressures to produce more food, keep growers profitable and address climate change.
The U.S. could be selling a lot more grain, meat and produce to the UK, and the British are seeking a trade agreement. American farm groups are cheering on the effort, but the Biden administration is still playing hard to get.
When the Russian military invasion cut off Ukraine’s ability to export sunflower oil and wheat, it helped push “a cascading food crisis around the world,” according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for U.S. Agency for International Development. Now Indonesia, which last week banned the export of palm oil, is exacerbating the conditions that are driving global shortages and price spikes of vegetable oil.
Economists have raised their forecast for farm income this year. As a result, farm earnings are expected to be about the same this year as last, despite sharp increases in production costs.
