DAVOS – Inspections of ships carrying Ukraine’s grain and other food exports have slowed to half their peak rate under a UN-brokered war deal, causing backlogs on ships scheduled to transport supplies to developing countries people are starvingsay representatives of the United Nations and Ukraine.
Some US and Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of deliberately slowing down inspections, which a Russian official denied.
According to the data, when the grain initiative got rolling in August, only 4.1 inspections of ships – both bound for and coming from Ukraine – were taking place every day Joint coordination center in Istanbul The Associated Press provided. Inspection teams from Russia, Ukraine, the UN and Turkey ensure that ships only transport food and other agricultural products and no weapons.
Inspections rose to 10.4 per day in September, then a peak rate of 10.6 in October. It’s been downhill since then: 7.3 in November, 6.5 in December and so far 5.3 in January.
“The hope was that through 2023, the daily inspection rate would increase each month, not halve,” USAID Administrator Samantha Power said in an interview Thursday on the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The slowdown in inspections “has a significant impact … in terms of the number of ships that can put to sea,” said the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “This in turn will inevitably impact global supply.”
More than 100 ships are waiting in the waters off Turkey either for inspection or to clarify their requests to participate, with ships waiting an average of 21 days between submission of application and inspection over the past two weeks, according to the United Nations
Despite fewer average daily inspections, UN figures showed that more grain actually got through last month, 3.7 million tonnes up from 2.6 million in November. The coordination center explained that this was due to the deployment of larger ships in December.
Officials fear what comes next. The UN deputy spokesman in New York linked the slowdown in inspections to ship backlogs and said the rate must rise, but did not blame Russia.
“We as the UN call on all parties to work to remove obstacles to reducing the backlog and improve our efficiency,” Farhan Haq told journalists on Wednesday.
“We have been pushing for more inspections to be carried out. We’ve been pushing to ensure inspections are quick and thorough,” he said. “We try everything to make it faster.”
The number of inspections of ships to and from Ukraine is a crucial measure of the throughput of Ukrainian grain on world markets, but not the only one: other factors include port activities, harvest and agricultural supply, silo stocks, weather, ship availability and the capacity of the ships.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative was designed to provide relief Ukrainian wheat, barley and other foods of vital importance to nations in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where affordable supplies are experiencing shortages food prices go up and contributed to pushing more people into poverty.
Proponents hoped an extension of the deal in November would speed up inspections – helping to ship millions of tons of food out of three Ukrainian ports that have been disrupted Russia’s invasion 11 months ago.
But Power said the US is “very concerned” that Moscow may be deliberately delaying inspections.
“The cost of actual export and shipping is now up 20% because these crews are idle only for the extra time required because the Russian Federation has reduced the number of inspections it will attend,” she said.
“It appears to be an intentional slowdown of the mechanism,” Power added, echoing similar comments made by US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Jan. 13 before the Security Council. She blamed “Russia’s deliberate slowdown in inspections. ”
Asked if Russia is deliberately slowing down inspections, Alexander Pchelyakov, a spokesman for Russia’s diplomatic mission to the UN agencies in Geneva, said: “It’s just not true.”
“The Russian side is sticking to the number of daily inspections according to the agreements made,” he said via text message.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry said ship backlogs began in November.
“The average waiting time is 2 to 5 weeks, which also results in millions in losses for cargo owners,” the ministry wrote, adding that Russia “artificially reduced the number of inspection teams from 5 to 3 without any explanation.”
The time needed for inspections has been “artificially extended by checking the performance of ships,” she added, saying there are cases “of Russians refusing to work for fictitious reasons.”
The ministry accused Russia of “deliberate sabotage” and said ports have been forced to work at half capacity since October and the inflow of ships has declined.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the delays in inspections.
The Grains Initiative, brokered by the UN and Turkey, came with a separate agreement to help Russia export its food and fertilizers Farmers worldwide have to reckon with rising prices for the nutrients they need for their plants.
Russia has complained that Western sanctions have created obstacles to its agricultural exports. While the sanctions don’t target Russian food or fertilizers, many shipping and insurance companies have been reluctant to do business with Moscow, either because they refused or because they sharply hiked the price.
In total, 17.8 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products have been exported to 43 countries under the agreement since August 1, according to the UN. China – a key ally of Russia – was one of the top recipients, followed by Spain and Turkey.
Low- and middle-income countries received 44% of the wheat exported under the deal, with nearly two-thirds of that going to developing countries, the world body said. The United Nations World Food Program bought 8% of the total.
The organization says nearly 350 million people worldwide are at risk of starvation due to conflict, climate change and COVID-19, up from 200 million people before the pandemic.
“I don’t care if you love Russia or hate it, you gotta have the food and the fertilizer.” WFP Executive Director David Beasley told AP near Davos. “If we’re not careful, we will have food shortages by the end of this year, or food prices will be so high that there will be destabilization of nations that will lead to mass migration.”
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Associated Press writers Zeynep Bilginsoy in Istanbul, Edith M. Lederer from the United Nations and Courtney Bonnell in London contributed to this report.
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Watch AP’s full coverage of the food crisis https://apnews.com/hub/food-crisis.
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