Britain is providing technology to ensure that any wheat stolen from Ukraine by Russia does not make it to the global market, Britain's Environment Minister George Eustice said on Monday.
"What the UK government is doing is making available the technology that we've got to be able to test the provenance of wheat," explained Eustice to Reuters.
"We're working with other countries including Australia on this so that we can ensure that stolen Ukrainian wheat does not find a route to market."
According to another Reuters report last week, Turkey said it was investigating claims that Ukrainian grain had been stolen by Russia and shipped to countries including Turkey, but added the probes had not found any stolen shipments so far.
Ukraine grain exports increasing by 50% each month
While 25 million tons of grain are stuck in Ukraine due to the war in Russia, the country is seeing grain exports across its western borders grow by almost 50% every month.
Yahoo reports amid the ongoing Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports, the Cabinet of Ministers is working daily on establishing export routes across Ukraine's western borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova.
Ukraine is in a race to export last year's grain harvest in order to free up storage space as the country begins it's harvest. Grain storage that has been damaged during the war is exacerbating conditions.
Last week, it was reported infrastructure owned by two major agriculture traders was damaged in Russian attacks at one of the biggest crop-handling ports in Ukraine, adding to the mounting losses suffered by its farm sector.
Rocket strikes on the Ukrainian port city of Mykolayiv on June 22 damaged a terminal owned by agricultural trader Viterra, and the site is on fire, a company spokesperson said. Bunge Ltd. also said one of its facilities was hit and a city rescue brigade was at the site.
