European associations COCERAL, FEDIOL and FEFAC shared in a statement their deep sorrow with the Ukrainian people, as the humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in the country and the Russian Federation continues its unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state.   

“Companies in our sectors across the board are taking steps to ensure the security of their employees on the ground and seek to help where they can. They also have to continue honoring their contracts, conscious that the importance of Ukraine’s supply of agricultural raw materials and ingredients to the EU is such, that our inability to import from that country will create severe shortages, both for the feed and food industries,” the statement said.

The Black Sea region represents an important supply of grains and oilseed products for the world market. Ukraine in particular exports about 60 million tonnes of grain to the world. It was expected, in the current marketing year, that Ukraine would export about 33 million tonnes of corn and 24 million tonnes of wheat. For Europe, maize represents the main imported product from Ukraine with a yearly average of 11 million tonnes, but also other commodities such as sunflower oil, with about 2 million tonnes. 

COCERAL, FEDIOL and FEFAC consider essential to address immediate practical issues for the vessels arriving in Europe from Ukraine, to anticipate potential adverse impacts for the food and feed supply chains and stress the urgent need to set up contingency plans that will help mitigate the loss of the Black Sea origin for these commodities.