China Looks to Ukraine for Food
August 07, 2012
The severe drought in the United States is adding to concerns about world food supplies and prices
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
America is the world’s largest food exporter. But the worst drought in half a century is hitting corn and wheat harvests. The drought across the central United States adds to concerns about world food supplies and prices in the coming years.
Experts say by twenty-fifty, the world will have to produce at least sixty percent more food to feed a population growing bigger and richer. China, a major food importer, is looking to producers around the world to guarantee future food supplies.
China has invested in food production in Australia and New Zealand. A new source of supply is Ukraine. Ukraine was known as the breadbasket of Europe because of rich corn and wheat harvests a century ago.
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Galyna Kovtok is chief executive of Ukraine’s largest agricultural business, ULF. She predicts that within a few months her company will be approved to export corn to China. That will make Ukraine the first country outside the Americas to do so.
ULF will soon have almost two million tons of elevator storage capacity as it prepares for the Chinese market. Chinese money is financing the building of six grain elevators. But the company's equipment is largely American, including half-million-dollar John Deere combines to harvest wheat.
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