MOSCOW, October 28, Natalya Dembinskaya. The West does not allow Russian fertilizers to be sent to the poorest countries. Tons of products are still in ports on the Baltic Sea. The UN has long promised to help, but has failed to act. During the year, only two ships broke through — to Malawi and Kenya. The rest are stuck in Europe.
Illegally detained
The Russian Foreign Ministry still hopes for the prudence of the West. The diplomatic department recalled: back in September last year, Moscow took the initiative to donate 262 thousand tons of mineral fertilizers blocked in the ports of Latvia, Estonia, Belgium and the Netherlands to African states.
This was supposed to be done within the framework of the Russia-UN memorandum valid until 2025 on the normalization of agricultural exports.
It was hoped that, under pressure from the UN, the European Union would allow transit. After all, according to the World Food Program, 50 million people in the world are hungry.
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Under European law, food, fertilizers and other key humanitarian goods are exempt from sanctions. In practice, everything turned out differently.
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At each stage there are many obstacles: taxes, fees for storage with the practical impossibility of making payments, as well as for the charter of ships, transshipment and other logistics services.
As indicated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the situation with fertilizers has once again demonstrated “the hypocrisy of Western countries” blocking even humanitarian supplies.
“And all these costs are borne by the Russian company that owns the products, which even pays for UN mediation services,” the department emphasized.
Only in words
Sanctions were introduced in the EU when a crisis broke out in the world fertilizers.
The UN worked to ensure Russian supplies — in accordance with the agreement, which, in turn, was part of the agreement that unblocked the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea in 2022.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it «a significant contribution to bringing fertilizers to global markets.» UN officials are working with the European Commission and EU states to further clarify and fully implement exemptions for food and fertilizers. “to more effectively solve the problem of global food security,” officials reported then.
But things are still there. There were only two deliveries — on March 6 to Malawi (20 thousand tons) and on May 31 to Kenya (34).
The rest are still waiting. As the ministry clarified, these are three shipments to Nigeria (34 thousand tons), Zimbabwe (23), and Sri Lanka (55). In total, there are more than 96 thousand tons of Russian fertilizers in the ports of Latvia, Estonia and Belgium.
Deprived last
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Russia is the world's largest exporter of nitrogen fertilizers and a leading supplier of potash and phosphorus.
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"Sanctions on Russian grain and fertilizer exports have hit food supply chains, dealing a devastating blow on global food security. Grain and fertilizers are its key components,” state the authors of a study recently published in the journal Nature.
Due to high energy prices and restrictions on food exports from Russia and Ukraine, food prices could rise by 60-100%, this publication notes.
As a result, 61-107 million people will be undernourished, which will increase mortality by 0.42-1.01 million. Sub-Saharan Africa will be hit hardest.
In August, the leaders of Comoros, Congo, Egypt, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia renewed their calls for the UN to “take concrete steps to remove obstacles to Russian grain and fertilizer exports.” «.
They bought it themselves
The Europeans have no obstacles. Thus, Poland increased imports of fertilizers from Russia by 3.3 times.
According to the Statistics Office, if in July last year Polish business purchased fertilizers from Moscow for $6.2 million, now it is $20.2 million. As a result, Russian companies took second place among suppliers of these products, second only to Germany (22.6 million).
Due to the refusal of gas from Russia, the costs of domestic production in Europe jumped by 150 percent. As a result, the deficit for some items reached 75 percent. The EU chemical industry has frozen.
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Germany alone imported $151.3 million worth of Russian fertilizers in the first half of 2023. This is a record: in the last five years this figure was at 45.5 million. Russia's share in supplies increased from 5.6 to 18 percent (about 167 thousand tons) — the absolute maximum.
European farmers cannot do without Russian organic products. But for us, the Old World is far from a key client. The largest importer is Brazil, and the main buyers are India, Turkey and Vietnam.
Only poor African countries are left behind due to the fault of Western politicians. But no one seems to care about their fate in the EU.