Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently met with six of his counterparts from the G-7 to discuss the deteriorating agricultural situation in Ukraine.  Currently the Port of Odessa is blockaded and port facilities at other eastern Ukraine cities have been seriously damaged by indiscriminate and deliberate shelling by forces of the Russian Federation.

After theft of 400,000 metric tons of grain in terminals throughout the conflict area in the East of the Nation, it is estimated that the Port of Odessa holds 25 million metric tons of grains that is needed by importing nations to avert starvation.

The three-day meeting in the Weissenhaus Resort near Hamburg during the second week of May considered options to make grain from Ukraine available and to plan for relief measures extending through the remainder of 2022.  Destruction of elevators and oilseed crushing plants, placing mines on farm land and and theft of agricultural machinery gives rise to a possible recurrence of the 1932 Holomodor. This was a contrived famine that resulted in the death of more than five million Ukrainians under Soviet domination.

Export of grain from the Port of Odessa will only become a reality, with the establishment of a safe, sea-corridor patrolled and guaranteed by NATO vessels. This action would inevitably result in escalation of the conflict with predictable repercussions by the Russian Federation.