A new system has been launched to track stolen Ukrainian grain, World Grain wrote.
Launched following the signing of an updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) by officials from Ukraine, the United Kingdom (UK) and Lithuania, the Grain Verification Scheme (GVS) was aimed at preventing the illegal export of Ukrainian grain from Russian-occupied territories, the 22 January report said.
Since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia had been accused of stealing grain from occupied areas of the country and selling it on the black market, World Grain wrote.
The Wall Street Journal reported in September 2024 that Russia had sold nearly $1bn of stolen grain.
The GVS system was “the first step at the ministerial level in the implementation of the strategic agreement between Ukraine and the UK, which will form the basis of our cooperation for the next hundred years”, Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Vitalii Koval was quoted as saying in a government press release.
The pilot of the initiative would be launched in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, which would become a key hub for verifying the origin of Ukrainian agricultural products, Koval said.
The system would identify stolen grain and stop its illegal transportation and would also include a database from the UK in which advanced technologies for determining the place of cultivation would help protect the interests of Ukrainian farmers and market transparency, he added.
“This cooperation is an example of how Ukraine, the UK and Lithuania are working together to create new standards of safety and fairness in the agricultural sector that will impact the future of food security around the world,” Koval said.
