GALATI COUNTY, Romania – After more than a year of surprisingly solid European unity in support of Ukraine, grains of discord are piling up in the barn of Mr Robert Vieru, a Romanian farmer with 500 tonnes of wheat and 250 tonnes of sunflower seeds now sitting unsold because ofA glut of Ukrainian cereals and other produce has nearly halved the value for the results of Mr Vieru’s labours.
Mr Vieru’s plight, shared by farmers in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria, flow from the unintended consequences of good intentions gone awry. When the European bloc announced in June that it was lifting tariffs and other barriers on Ukrainian farm products, the move was welcomed as a bold response to Russia’s blockade and bombardment of Ukraine’s main ports on the Black and Azov Seas.
The plan largely worked. It helped get millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain onto the global market, easing prices and averting hunger in other countries. While prices fell, transport and other costs rose as Ukrainian grain poured into the main river port for the Galati County farming region. Shipments of Ukrainian grain last year through Galati port increased more than 90 times compared with 2021.