Ukraine has supplies of staple foods for several years - agrarian policy minister

KYIV. April 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Ukraine has enough supplies of staple food products and stocks for producing animal feed for several years, and no problems with food should be anticipated in the country in the near future, Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Mykola Solsky said in an interview published in Economichna Pravda (Economic Truth).

"We have supplies of staple foods for several years. We have enough vegetable oil even for ten years. It should also be added that, since we have a lot of grain and some of it serves as animal feed, we certainly have meat and dairy products. And there should be no reasons to worry," he said.

Ukraine consumes from five million to seven million tonnes of grain cultures annually, while its granaries currently contain 20 million tonnes of grain from the previous season, and another 30 million tonnes of grain is expected to be harvested this season, Solsky said.

Taking into account Ukraine's elevator capacity, the main problem will be exports of crops, he said.

"We don't see problems with food products in Ukraine now. They do exist where they cannot be delivered, but that's a different matter. Everyone sees that, even though the range of goods in groceries has shortened, they are still in place. I have a feeling that the situation has begun improving slightly," Solsky said.

As reported earlier, Ukraine exported up to five million tonnes of agricultural products monthly through the Odesa and Mykolayiv ports before February 24, but now it can ship only about 500,000 tonnes of grain. Due to this, Ukraine's monthly export revenues have declined by about $1.5 billion.