The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with the financial support of Canada, has launched a new project worth $40 million to address the shortage of granaries in Ukraine, ProAgro Group reported, citing information from the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food.
This initiative will provide storage for an additional 2.4 million tons of grain in 2022-2023 along with appropriate technical support and equipment. This project is in addition to the $17 million in aid recently provided by the Japanese government to provide storage for 1 million tons of grain.
This season, Ukraine expects to harvest up to 51.1 million tons of grain. Of the total grain storage capacity of 75 million tons, 14% of the tanks are damaged or destroyed, 10% are in Russian-occupied territory, and about 30% remain filled with 22 million tons of last year’s crop ready for export – according to the Ukrainian government.
“Given the unprecedented problems with crop storage this year, large-scale innovative solutions are needed. For this reason, support to the sector will probably remain in demand until 2023. FAO is responding rapidly, taking a long-term view and seeking to invest in long-term solutions, based on industry capacity, in coordination with the Government at national and local levels,” said Rein Paulsen, Director of FAO’s Office of Emergency and Resilience.
