Source: Ukragroconsult (Ukraine)
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) intends to buy 290,000 tons of corn from Mexico and Ukraine.
The grain is to be delivered to South African countries affected by the drought caused by El Niño, writes Bloomberg.
With the main maize crop in Zimbabwe down by about 70 percent and maize harvests also down in Zambia and Malawi, the WFP is trying to raise about $400 million to fund its fight.
Aid to South Africa is complicated because people in the region eat mainly white maize, rather than the yellow maize popular in other countries, and because many countries ban the import of genetically modified grain unless it is milled. Still, some 27 million people in seven countries will need assistance between the end of this year and March 2025, said Valerie Guarnieri, WFP’s deputy executive director for program and policy development.
“We will definitely have to go outside the region to source the white maize we need for our initiative,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg after returning from a trip to Zimbabwe.
The WFP is expected to import a large part of the quantity (about 100,000 tons) of white maize from Mexico, some from Tanzania and small quantities of milled yellow maize from Ukraine.