The suspension of the agreement interrupts shipments to Italy where almost 1.2 billion kilos of corn for animal feed, soft wheat and sunflower oil arrived from Ukraine in the last year before the war. This is what emerges from Coldiretti's analysis on the effects of Russia's decision to interrupt the agreement reached with the United Nations, Turkey and Ukraine to ensure commercial traffic in Black Sea ports. The blockade of cereal shipments on the Black Sea is worrying above all for the supply of corn to Italian stables in a situation in which production costs have grown by 57% according to CREA, bringing national breeders to their knees. In fact, Ukraine, with a share of just over 13% for a total of 785 million kilos, is the second largest supplier of corn to Italy, which is forced to import about half of its needs to guarantee the feeding of animals in the stables. Ukraine, on the other hand, guarantees just 3% of national wheat imports (122 million kilos) while annual arrivals of sunflower oil are equal to 260 million kilos, according to the analysis of ISTAT data relating to foreign trade 2021. The stop to the passage of ships loaded with cereals on the Black Sea feeds the risk of famine in as many as 53 countries where, according to the UN, the population spends at least 60% of their income on food. A risk also for political stability at a time when social tensions and migratory flows are multiplying, including towards Italy. In fact, Russia's announcement pushes prices with the interest on the agricultural commodity market of speculation that moves from financial markets to precious metals such as gold to agricultural products where prices depend less and less on the real trend of supply and demand and more and more on financial movements and market strategies that find in "future" derivative contracts an instrument on which anyone can invest by buying and selling only virtually the product, to the detriment of farmers and consumers.
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