Thank you very much for this invitation.
I would like to start by reminding you that Ukraine, throughout its history, which spans far beyond 1991, has served as the breadbasket for many of its neighbouring and more distant regions. For example, in the 1950s, it produced more than 25% of the Soviet Union's grains. Over the last decade, Ukraine gained quite a prominent position in the global export of grain and sunflower oil. For example, in 2021, it exported 10% of global wheat exports and 50% of global sunflower oil exports.
On February 24, with the invasion by the Russian Federation on the northern, southern and eastern borders of Ukraine, the situation has changed dramatically. As of today, compared to February 2021, for example, Ukraine doesn't control more than 20% of its territory, which translates into roughly eight million hectares of arable land, which by comparison is 70% of arable land in Germany, which is one of the major grain exporters in the EU. It could be compared to approximately 20% of arable land in Canada.
What does this mean in terms of grain production? Ukraine is losing around 10 million tonnes of wheat, three million tonnes of corn, three million tonnes of barley and two million tonnes of sunflower oil. With this loss of land alone, Ukraine forgoes around 50% of its wheat exports and around 40% of its sunflower oil exports.
With the blockade of Azov and the Black Sea ports, the situation is even worse because, even in the best case scenario with the full capacity of the Ukrainian railway, the export capacity of Ukraine through the western borders is reduced at least by a factor of 10. We are comparing six million tonnes previously per month to 600,000 tonnes now, in the best case.
Why should we care about the exports? This is because sensitive countries, less food-secure countries like Egypt, Bangladesh, Yemen and Libya, are highly dependent on imports of wheat, which constitute more than 30% of the daily calorie intake of the population. They also depend a lot on imports from Ukraine. For example, on average, these four countries import more than 25% of wheat from Ukraine—some of them 50%, some of them 25%.
This means that the tremendous reduction in Ukrainian production and exports, in addition to the high prices for grains we had already observed before the war, will put these countries at a high risk of famine. In Ukraine, as well, the situation is not great because the affordability of food, meaning the financial ability of Ukrainians to buy food, is reduced by approximately 40%. This is a huge number. It means that we are maybe expecting certain nourishment issues in a larger population of Ukraine.
To conclude, unless stopped, the Russian Federation will continue devastating Ukrainian lands, and it will continue threatening domestic and global food security.
Thank you.