PEORIA, Ill. - Illinois Corn Marketing Board (ICMB) director of exports and logistics, Collin Waters, came to the Peoria Farm Bureau to update members on the ramifications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, now in its second month.

Ukrainian farmers have begun to flee the nation’s interior as Russian tanks and aircraft broadened their campaign to include targets to the west and north of earlier fighting. The resulting chaos has left Ukrainian farmers with an uncertain future heading into planting season, according to Waters, who likened Ukraine’s climate and latitude to that of the U.S. upper Midwest.

“Ukraine has been the fourth largest corn exporter in the world. They play something of an outsized role in the export market, especially in the markets that they serve. Europe, North Africa, the Middle East – those are the markets that are going to be really impacted by the situation in Ukraine,” said Waters, adding that this may lead to China putting pressure on the world corn market for the foreseeable future, along with the soybean market, as the nation seeks new import sources. “In 2020, China was a huge buyer of Ukrainian corn. They went from buying about 2 million metric tons to buying nearly 8 million metric tons.”

U.S. exports of corn have already begun to shift due to the conflict in Ukraine, with ships loaded to Spain and Egypt – two non-typical buyers of U.S. corn – in the past couple of weeks. Unless the situation changes soon, very little in the way of agricultural commodities will be exported by Ukraine in 2022, Waters predicted.

“Most of the Black Sea ports have been for all intents and purposes shut down. There have been a few vessels moving out of the Russian-controlled areas, but one of the big hang-ups here is insurance. The people who own these vessels don’t want them destroyed, and the insurance companies are not going to be excited about going into a war zone. There is a lot of fighting currently going on within the export positions,” said Waters, hired by the ICMB in 2019 after 14 years working for the Montana Department of Agriculture and the Montana Wheat and Barley Association.

The shutting down of commodity movements from the Baltic nation’s Black Sea ports means that Ukrainian shippers will face extreme logistic difficulties exporting last year’s crop. As for this year’s crops, those farmers who were able to plant corn, wheat or soybeans have no guarantee that their crops will come to harvest as much of the labor force flees war-torn Ukraine, or is pressed into military duty.

“The Russian forces are basically moving across the prime corn growing regions. The big producing regions are an active war zone, so farmers are going to have trouble getting a crop in, and getting fuel is going to be a challenge. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around what they are going through. There are tanks rolling through their fields and rockets flying overhead,” Waters said.

“And then there is the labor force. 2.5 million to 3 million people have fled Ukraine – that’s the labor force. Even if they were able to get a crop in, I don’t know what it is going to look like trying to get a crop out. It’s going to be a huge challenge for those folks.”

Waters said he couldn’t estimate how many farmers are still remaining on their lands, planting crops and tending to livestock, as the conflict rages on. He recommends that those interested in the Ukrainian farmers’ plight should follow the Global Farmers Network website (www.globalfarmernetwork.org), where updates issued by Ukrainian farmers are sometimes shared.

Also commenting on the agricultural impacts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was Stan Born, an Illinois farmer and board member of the American Farm Bureau Federation and U.S. Soybean Export Council. Born told the Peoria farmers that U.S. soybean exports would likely not be significantly impacted by the war. He is concerned, however, about rising food prices and increased world food insecurity resulting from less farm commodities being exported.

“When it comes to food we will see prices go up in some areas more than others. Egypt and North Africa, where they consume a lot of bread, are big importers of Ukraine’s wheat. I think you’ll see it hit them harder than it will us here,” Born said.

“They’re going to have to get (wheat) supplies from somewhere, and maybe some of that will come from us. That will drive prices up for wheat and drive up prices at the grocery stores for you and me. The effects will be felt around the world but to different extents.”

Poorer and developing countries will likely take the brunt of the suffering that will be associated with food supply disruptions and shortages, Born predicted. “They won’t have the resources to be able to buy from these other sources, as they have to compete for these inputs. It’s going to be more acute and intense for the poorer nations than it will be to rich nations like the E.U. and the U.S.,” he said.