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ARCHIVED - Lack of wheat drives up price of biscuits and bread in Spain
The EC is in talks to guarantee food supplies for Spain and the rest of Europe
Most people are welcoming the return of the warm weather following a disastrously damp March and April, but unusually high temperatures during May have wreaked havoc on Spain’s grain productions, bumping up the cost of wheat-based staples like bread and biscuits while grocery prices in general skyrocket.
According to annual estimates made by the agricultural association ASAJA, Spain needs more than 36 million tonnes of cereal to meet the human and animal consumption needs, and this winter farmers will be lucky to yield 15.4 million tonnes, between the extreme heat forecast and the degradation caused by pests.
Wheat-based crops are by no means one of the biggest productions in Spain and a huge amount of this product is imported, a process which has been severely hampered by the war in Ukraine. A large amount of grain destined for Spain and the rest of Europe is shipped from Kiev, and this week Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov assured that his country is willing to give formal guarantees that it will not attack the ports that Kiev agrees to demine for the export of Ukrainian grain.
"President Putin has already publicly said that we guarantee the safety of these routes and we guarantee that, in the event that Ukraine agrees to demine the ports and let the ships out, we will not take advantage of this situation in the framework of the special military operation that is underway," Lavrov said at a news conference in Ankara.
For the European Commission, food safety is now one of the weapons Vladimir Putin could potentially employ in retaliation for the latest round of sanctions levied against Russia, and troops have already bombed several Ukrainian grain warehouses and blocked docks ready to export this vital foodstuff.
"Food has become part of the Kremlin's arsenal of terror. This is the only way to describe Russia's bombing of grain storage facilities and its blockade and in some cases theft from Ukrainian ports of some 20 million tons of grain currently trapped in Ukraine," Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament.
In an attempt to guarantee supply, Turkey offered on Wednesday June 8 to apply an international plan, which must be agreed with Moscow, Kiev and the United Nations, to allow cereal exports from both Russia and Ukraine, which are currently blocked.
Image: Pixaby
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