Food Security: Dmytro Kuleba addresses Asia

The following is an excerpt from Radio Ukraine’s early-morning news in English at 01:00 UTC on 1278 kHz medium wave.
Reception was patchy, and my transcription therefore contains a few gaps. Comments and corrections are welcome.

Radio Ukraine International QSL card, around 2016^*)

Russia’s war against Ukraine has already led to unprecedented price increase and …. for the word’s food trade. Russia’s invasion will not only affect prices, but also future harvests. It applies not just to wheat but to other grains as well. For the last couple of years, the Ukrainian export of corn has significantly grown. The country is the fourth-largest exporter and … for sixteen percent of the world corn trade. Ukraine is also the world’s largest exporter of [seed] oil. Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba comments:

“You will see the repercussions of this war because of the interrupted chains of supply of agricultural products from Ukraine. I may recall that 55 percent of sunflower oil on the global market is supplied from Ukraine. Every tenth loaf of bread in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa is made with use of Ukrainian wheat. We didn’t want this war. We want peace, we want to trade, we want to be a food guarantor for Asia, for all other parts of the world. We have but to achieve that to get back to the mountain – we have to stop Putin. And therefore I call all Asian nations to demand from Russia to stop this crazy war.”

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^*) South East Asia DXing, March 5, 2016
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Tags: Africa, agriculture, China, commodities, diplomacy, Russia, trade, Ukraine, Vietnam