WASHINGTON, DC, US — The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture has released the Black Sea Grain Food Security Dashboard, which demonstrates the scope of the grain and oilseeds trade through the Black Sea, a region from which millions of tonnes of agricultural commodities are shipped worldwide each year.
Using pre-war data from FAS’s Production, Supply and Distribution database and Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales, the dashboard demonstrates the impacts of Black Sea trade disruption on food access in various countries.
The analysis focuses on key commodities, including barley, corn, soybean oil, sunflower seed oil, and wheat. For each country, the largest suppliers are shown, which allows the dashboard to illustrate the potential impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine has had a major impact on grain and oilseed exports from the Black Sea region,” said Alexis M. Taylor, undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs at the USDA. “By looking at the Vulnerabilities to Trade Disruption dashboard, it becomes very clear how big an impact Russia’s war has on food security in countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as many countries in these regions import a significant portion of their grains and oilseeds from Ukraine and Russia.”
The Black Sea Grain Initiative was brokered last July by the United Nations and Turkey after Russia’s invasion last February blockaded Ukrainian Black Sea ports.
The dashboard complements the Russia Grain and Oilseed Exports Expand trade report published by the FAS. This report and dashboard provide an in-depth data-based analysis of trade from the Black Sea region.
The UN has said that nearly 30 million tonnes of grain and foodstuffs had been exported from Ukraine under the Black Sea deal, including nearly 600,000 tonnes of grain in World Food Programme vessels for aid operations in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Yemen.
“The new trade report shows that despite the Russian government’s continuous claims of export challenges, Russia’s grain and oilseed exports have thrived during the current marketing year with ample supplies and competitive prices,” Taylor said. “Since the beginning of this unjustified war, the Russian government has significantly reduced the transparency of its trade data, requiring USDA analysts to find additional data sources to accurately measure agricultural trade in the region.”
