Disturbing images of flabbergasting amounts of grain spillage along the Poland-Ukraine border have shocked the world recently. What is often seen and reported as a bilateral issue between Ukraine and its otherwise strategic ally Poland is actually a consequence of the complex interplay of policies and actors across the board. At crossroads are strategic, economic and sustainability policies in Europe and the role of various actors like Ukraine, Poland, Brussels, and Turkey alongside the larger ‘Global South’ that is most affected by the weaponisation of food and the politics of grain flows.
It is also fertile ground to offer tactical mediation by all those who have claimed the role of mediators since the war began. Ironically, while the world’s attention has been focused on ending the war, little heed has been paid to specific issues where tactical and limited mediation have yielded constructive results.
To understand the grain spillage happening in Poland today, the dots need to be connected back to the early days of the Russia-Ukraine war. Ninety per cent of Ukrainian grain couldn’t reach its destinations at the time, perpetuating a shocking food crisis that needed an urgent solution.
Turkey’s tactical mediation success
Amid calls for ending the war that dissipated without creating much difference on the ground, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his traction with Moscow and Kyiv to resolve the food crisis. He also capitalised on Ankara’s control of the maritime traffic in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits under the 1936 Montreux convention. Joined by the United Nations, his efforts soon materialised into the Black Sea Grain Deal.
The grain deal was negotiated in July 2022 between Turkey, the UN, Russia and Ukraine. It ensured that Ukraine’s grain could be exported from its southern ports in the Black Sea-Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi, via the Bosphorus. Back then, the alternative methods of land and rail routes through Poland or Romania were not ready to handle the bulk of Ukrainian grain.
Effective but rocky from the start, the grain deal soon became a victim of impasse as President Vladimir Putin accused the West of being unfair to Russian exports. The deal was abandoned soon after and has been lying inactive ever since.
However, a set of developments in the course of the war changed a few dynamics in favour of Kyiv.
The first change occurred in the Black Sea, where Ukraine has consistently destroyed Russian warships in intense maritime battles. This dramatically tilted the balance of power in the maritime domain in Ukraine’s favour. The unfolding of the Russia-Ukraine war in the Black Sea is often considered the second most significant sea battle after the Falkland Wars. Defying the Russian naval blockade, Ukraine devised a new route in the Black Sea for exporting its grains that passed closer along the western coast.
Turkey, on the other hand, has been intermittently persuading Russia to join the redundant deal, but to no avail.
However, there is another reason why Ukraine hasn’t been very motivated to pursue the deal either.
After the war, the European Union also tried to work on a second solution to export Ukrainian grain. These export passages created by the EU were called Solidarity Lanes. Their purpose was to allow a bidirectional flow of goods to and fro Ukraine. Merely months after the war, the EU Commission set up the Solidarity Lanes Action Plan to establish alternative logistics routes via rail, road and inland waterways.
These Solidarity Lanes have enabled the export of over 61 million tonnes of grain, oilseeds and related products.
Taken together with the Black Sea exports – which account for almost 30 per cent of Ukrainian exports – the solidarity lanes can facilitate the export of almost 60 per cent or more of Ukraine’s total exports. This means that almost 90-100 per cent of Ukrainian exports can get delivered to their destinations despite the redundant grain deal and the Russian blockade of the Black Sea.
In fact, Ukraine’s exports had reached pre-war levels long ago and sustained the trajectory thanks to these two contingency plans executed with utmost detail. The Solidarity Lanes have also allowed Ukraine to import around 40 million tonnes of goods the country needs: from military and humanitarian aid to fuel and other products.
As the EU grapples with these challenges, it is crucial to consider the broader implications of its agricultural policies and how they affect not only local farmers but also the dynamics of international trade and support for Ukraine.
Also read: Russia’s GDP growth shows resilience against Western sanctions. But it only tells half a story
Eroding solidarity
However, with time, the solidarity quotient of the solidarity lanes started to crumble, especially as Polish farmers’ cries to ban Ukrainian grain from entering their country caught the world’s attention. In the middle of this conundrum, the EU was confronted with an additional task. It had to create mechanisms to safeguard the interests of European farmers while simultaneously supporting Ukraine to the best of its ability.
At the root of this disjunct are two problems. First, that Ukraine’s grain production is more efficient than EU standards. Part of the grain that comes to Europe for export also lands in the European markets and outperforms local grain in price competitiveness. This factor will have to be dealt with in greater detail whenever Ukraine finally joins the EU. There is no way under the sun that the existing agricultural policies within the EU will encompass Ukraine’s agricultural production ecosystem.
Second, while the European bloc has smothered its own farmers with environmental regulations, it has liberalised its trade support to Ukraine to assist the country in its war effort. Right after the conflict started, the EU waived off quotas and duties on large imports from Ukraine. The European farmers find this unfair on themselves as these measures drastically reduce the price of the imported grain compared to local produce.
That explains why the farmers’ protests have been rising. The election of Donald Tusk has ensured that Poland’s support for Ukraine remains intact. However, the wavering solidarity between the countries’ farmers remains a major issue.
Bilaterally, there could be some way forward after April 2024, when local elections will be held in Poland. Until then, it seems unlikely that Tusk would alienate the farmers by accepting any terms of negotiation that are not seen as favourable by the farmers themselves.
In the meantime, the situation has been bursting at the seams. Last month, the Polish farmers initiated a complete blockade of the Ukraine-Poland border, which resulted in astounding amounts of grain spillage. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the situation demonstrated “erosion of solidarity on a daily basis”. What is most baffling to Kyiv is that the spilled grain was headed to Germany and was not even meant to enter Polish markets. Unlike what the situation seems at the outset, it is not a bilateral issue between Ukraine and Poland only and cannot be tackled bilaterally for any lasting way out.
Also read: Securing Ukraine is very much part of Europe’s agenda. But when will Kyiv join NATO?
An out-of-sync sustainability agenda
EU’s stringent climate laws and green policies are, first and foremost, unfair to its own farmers because they constrain their modalities of production. Protests rocked France in January 2024 as farmers rallied against the reduction in state subsidies for farmers’ diesel fuel. Excessive regulations on environmental protection and unrealistic policies for energy transition are seen as choking farmers’ options to keep their production economically sustainable.
Germany, too, saw protests after the government decided to phase out a tax break on agricultural diesel. Farmers from Spain, Belgium, Hungary, Romania etc have staged similar protests.
What is the way forward?
Brussles’ climate agenda is ill-prepared to handle the populist cost of transitioning to sustainability. The difficulties faced in cutting favourable trade agreements are real. This is especially evident when sustainability frameworks like the CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) sink the prospects of an otherwise promising trade linkage due to the sheer contrast between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ economy outlook. The irony becomes more pronounced when the European farmers themselves rise against the bloc’s stringent climate policies. While these policies are, for sure, futuristic, they are quite unrealistic in the present moment.
It also highlights a further disjunct between the bloc’s genuine will to support Ukraine with tax cuts, while simultaneously pushing its own farmers to comply with the sustainability agenda amid inflationary pressures.
None of the above have any easy final answers.
Ultimately, it is the ‘Global South’ that is most vulnerable in this chain of crosscutting policies and interests. Therefore, it may have created a space for geographically distant players like India to step up diplomatic efforts with like-minded countries to offer tactical mediation once again.
The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)