September 13, 2026 Another global food crisis is emerging from Ukraine due to expanded conflict with Russia, reducing food exports.
When Russia invaded the Ukraine (a sovereign state) in February of 2022, this blocked Ukraine’s large foodgrains exports and caused a global food crisis. A compromise U.N.’s multi-country initiative, the Istanbul Joint Coordination Center (based in Turkey), responded and helped move approximately 32.9 million tons of grain and foodstuffs. WFP transported more than 725,000 tons of Ukrainian wheat to Afghanistan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. That ended in July 2023 and Ukraine subsequently established its own maritime corridor. As of January 2026, Ukraine had shipped an additional 100 million tons of grain overseas.
However, that recovery is ending as attacks and a de facto blockade in mid-2026 have again sharply reduced shipments, while the operational mechanism is gone and the underlying risk has returned. During August 2026, Ukrainian grain exports were reportedly about 75% below the 2025 levels as Russian attacks constrained Black Sea shipping. Odesa, Ukraine, was still being attacked on September 13. More than 90 percent of exports normally depend on the Odesa hub.
At this same time, inside Ukraine, a useful food-security/logistics intervention is reaching its application deadline today. FAO, WFP, Mercy Corps and the Ukrainian Red Cross are distributing free grain-storage sleeves to eligible grain and oilseed producers in nine frontline and conflict-affected oblasts, with support from Canada, the EU, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and the U.S. Department of State. The need is substantial: Ukraine’s effective storage capacity is estimated at about 59 million tons, and FAO warns that the country could face an 11-million-ton storage deficit by November as wartime damage and disrupted Black Sea exports cause inventories to accumulate.
These sleeves are lare airtight polyethylene tubes laid horizontally on prepared ground; each sleeve holds about 200 tons of wheat, maize, barley, sunflower seed or another commodity. Properly sealed, the sleeves protect grain from rain and substantially reduce insect and moisture damage. These are needed now, as the flow out of Ukraine has slowed.
The U.N. separately reports an historic pattern of threats to ships and their crew in, noting “Ukraine’s grain ports are receiving only one or two vessels a day during harvest season, compared with the normal 20 to 30″. This posting quotes the head of the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization about how attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, the waters off Somalia, and the Black Sea is unlike anything the sector has previously encountered. “Commercial shipping has become a deliberate instrument of geopolitical leverage between States.”
Photo credit: © FAO/Genya Savilov
-Contributed by Steven Hansch of the World Hunger Education Service.
