By KYIV. Dec 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intends to work on the creation of an international fund that will support the Ukrainian agribusiness to solve food shortages in African countries.
He said this during an online meeting with Head of NGO Ukrainian Agrarian Council (UAC) Andriy Dykun, according to the UAC website on Monday.
Johnson said that the world needs Ukraine to produce more food. He said that we need more calories in Africa, and this is a real problem. He said that he will look at different possibilities, but this should be a project created in cooperation with other governments. A joint fund to support Ukrainian agriculture economy in difficult times is needed, but with the understanding that these funds will be returned. That is, this is a kind of lend-lease that the Americans did during the war to help the UK and the Germans, he said.
According to the UAC, the parties discussed the current situation in the Ukrainian agricultural sector, the deepening of the global food crisis and possible options for cooperation. At the same time, they agreed that the food issue concerns not only Ukraine, but the whole world.
"In the long term, we need to restart agricultural enterprises in Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv regions and in those regions that will still be de-occupied, and this requires billions of dollars. The UK, the United States are helping Ukraine, but now we have the war, many internally displaced persons, electricity, etc. Therefore, the problem of agricultural production is not number one today, it will be in the future if we do not act now," the head of the UAC said.
In turn, the ex-Prime Minister of the UK said that his country supports the Ukrainians and, above all, wants to help in the economic recovery of Ukraine.
He said that Ukraine is an incredible country with an amazing economy, and a lot of effort to get the grain agreement in place so that Ukrainian grain exports from Odesa continue was put in, and now we are looking for opportunities to further promote the development of the Ukrainian agricultural sector, Johnson said.
