UN wants Black Sea grain deal extended for a year

The 120-day deal on exporting grains from Ukraine agreed with Moscow and Kyiv, which runs out on November 19, should be extended for a year, a UN chief said Monday.

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said he was “reasonably confident” that the Black Sea Grain Initiative deal would be renewed.

Two agreements brokered by the UN and Turkey were signed on July 22 — to allow the export of Ukrainian grain blocked by Russia’s war in the country, and the export of Russian food and fertilisers despite Western sanctions imposed on Moscow.

“It needs to go beyond the four-month cycle. We need to see it renewed for a year,” Griffiths told a press conference in Geneva.

“The farmers need to know soon whether it is worth planting for the harvest that will come next year. And for that reason, we need to have a kind of certainty on the Black Sea operation.”

Griffiths said the deal was valid for four months and would therefore run out on November 22 but a spokeswoman for the initiative’s Joint Coordination Centre later clarified that it “runs initially for 120 days, which would bring it to November 19”.

“According to the initiative, the deal will be automatically extended for the same period unless one of the parties notifies the other of the intent to terminate it or to modify it,” spokeswoman Ismini Palla told AFP.

Russia complains that despite the Black Sea agreement, it is not able to sell its food and fertilisers due to the sanctions on its financial and logistics sectors.

– Fertiliser concerns –

“We would like to see it renewed and possibly even expanded to include more fertiliser,” Griffiths said of the deal.

The prices of synthetic fertilisers — based on nitrogen, phosphorus or potash — have tripled over the past year and a half following supply disruptions from Russia, which was the world’s largest exporter, and the soaring price of gas which is essential in the manufacturing process.

The UN’s emergency relief coordinator also hoped to see an agreement on exporting ammonia.

Griffiths said the systems and procedures already in place have been working well, and “they can be used, and even I hope expanded when we go into the renewal”.

Griffiths said that Rebeca Grynspan, head of the UN’s trade and development agency, which participated in negotiating the agreement, would travel to Moscow with him in a week’s time to meet senior Russian officials.

The agreements aim to reduce tensions on global food markets, and to prevent poor countries from having to face serious food crises.

The UN’s food and agriculture agency said world food prices continued to fall in September for the sixth consecutive month. However, its cereal price index edged up 1.5 percent from August.

A meeting of fertiliser producers will be organised in Paris ahead of the G20 summit in Indonesia in November, in order to intensify production.