Bilateral meeting with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine – H.E. Dmytro Kuleba

Rome - The FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, H.E. Dmytro Kuleba, met to discuss the FAO-Ukraine collaboration and technical assistance FAO is providing in Ukraine.

The Minister expressed his appreciation for the continuous support provided by FAO. He underlined that thousands of hectares of arable land are affected by the war in Ukraine, which is having a devastating impact on Ukrainian farmers.

The Director-General confirmed that maintaining agricultural production capacity and facilitating marketing of agricultural products, including for exports, remains a focus of FAO’s Rapid Response Programme for Ukraine 2023, through which FAO assists rural families and small farmers residing in front-line oblasts by providing generators, seeds and other agricultural inputs to ensure that these communities can rely on their own production. Qu added that FAO, in close collaboration with the Government of Ukraine and partners, will support the identification of alternative energy solutions for small and medium-sized farmers and food producers, to mitigate the immediate impacts of the energy crisis on agricultural production.

Minister Kuleba also underlined the importance of sustainability of the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI), which facilitates grain exports from Ukraine. He noted that three channels of exports – through sea, through land to Europe and through the Danube river – are vitally important for sustainability of food security. Qu noted that FAO looks forward to the extension of the BSGI to improve food availability globally, stabilize world markets and raise incomes for Ukrainian farmers.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs praised FAO for its support to strengthen Ukraine’s capacity to test and certify food commodities for export at border facilities.

Both also discussed the importance and obstacles on the way to diversification of Ukraine’s agriculture sector and expansion of its capacity for domestic processing of agricultural products.