Russian fertilizer goes to Africa as part of UN export deal

A shipment of 20,000 tonnes of Russian-produced fertilizer has been shipped from the Netherlands to Malawi as part of a UN-brokered deal to keep agricultural commodities flowing to world markets despite an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, UN officials said Tuesday.

The shipment is part of a donation of more than a quarter of a million tons of fertilizer stored in European ports from Russia, one of the world's largest producers of nitrogen fertilizers.

The UN said the donation "will serve to meet humanitarian needs and prevent catastrophic crop losses in Africa, where it is currently planting season."

The agrarian fallout from the war in Ukraine has been a major concern for international economists and humanitarian groups who monitor the export of key commodities such as grain to vulnerable markets in the Middle East and North Africa.

"Governments must ensure that the conflict in Ukraine does not exacerbate the food crisis in the Middle East and North Africa and protect the right to affordable and adequate food for all," the humanitarian organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement earlier this year. a statement..

The fertilizer initiative is part of an agreement signed in July in Istanbul to address global food insecurity.

Russia briefly pulled out of the agreement in October after an alleged attack on Russian ships supporting an export corridor from a Ukrainian Black Sea port. This caused a brief spike in international grain prices before Russia resumed its participation in the deal.

The supply of fertilizer is "part of facilitating trade," Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said at a press conference on Tuesday.

"Producers of this fertilizer, which was already in European ports, have decided to give the fertilizers. Whether it's paid or a gift, it's still trading," he said.

International economists had paid close attention to Russia's fertilizer exports, which are critical to crop yields in various agricultural sectors in numerous countries.

"If fertilizers don't flow, the world will produce less," Máximo Torero, chief economist of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said in a June interview.

Decreased levels of food production can lead to problems not only with access to food, but also with the general availability of food, Torero said.

"That's what worries us, that's the most dramatic scenario for us. And that is what we should avoid," he said.

US officials have also stressed the importance of Russian fertilizers to world markets.

"Fertilizer, as you know, has become a huge problem, and Russia is a major exporter of fertilizer," US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the UKTN in May. "They just need to open up their own markets and end this war, end the blockade they are responsible for and keep food flowing."

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UN officials in Istanbul reported Tuesday that the Black Sea grain corridor is still operating, with three ships leaving Ukrainian ports carrying more than 60,000 tons of wheat, corn and sunflower oil.

Despite cooperation in the field of agriculture, the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, which is supported by the West, seems to have little to solve.

"We have all seen Russia's attempts to destroy Ukraine's civilian infrastructure using missiles and Iranian drones," White House spokesman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. "Russia is depriving the Ukrainian people of heat, power and other critical services as winter approaches."