Ukraine needs our trade, not just charitable aid

Following the outbreak of war, Ukraine’s grain production dropped by 29%, according to EU data. But demand for, and production of, high-quality Ukrainian food items including meat and dairy products, pasta and pulses, oil and other staples is on the rise again.

I recently spent a week with the Ridne Food Consortium in central and eastern Ukraine, a group of farmers and food producers who – despite the horrifying and illegal aggression forced upon them – are working to feed the vast number of displaced people in Ukraine who are dependent on food aid. They are also working to export their world-class products to help rebuild and revitalise the Ukrainian economy.

Their request is simple: stop just giving money to aid organisations to ‘help’ the Ukrainian people, and instead start buying their excellent products so they can help themselves.

Having spent years in senior positions in the international aid sector, I was reminded of how much it still needs to improve. Most traditional aid programmes, including in Ukraine, still rely on either internationally donated food items or procuring the food they distribute via large international contracts.

Whilst this might seem harmless and even generous, it can do a great deal of harm. Ukraine was and could still be one of the largest food-producing countries in the world: by sending or buying food abroad, most of the precious aid money being donated stays outside of Ukraine. It might help feed a family for a day, but it doesn’t create jobs, or help rebuild businesses or leave any lasting value. In fact, it undermines Ukraine. 

As one food processing plant owner told me: “We are incredibly grateful for the aid you send and the help you have given, but we would rather have you as customers than charitable benefactors so we can rebuild our country.”

Ridne’s partners now produce close to 40% of the food being distributed by some of the biggest international agencies, and their produce has provided close to 150 million meals in Ukraine so far. More importantly, Ridne has kept factories open and even allowed them to expand their production, when many of them came close to bankruptcy after the war began.

It is reducing the need for aid by guaranteeing and creating thousands of jobs in farming communities, food processing companies, logistics firms, packaging companies, quality control firms and every other type of business involved in a modern food industry supply chain.

Ridne partners’ standards generally exceed all the required sustainability, ISO and international production standards that we expect from highly developed agro-industry companies.

I spoke with one who has two sons fighting on the frontline, and he was adamant that sustainability is essential to ensure his children’s and grandchildren’s economic future. Another simply said: “Just because we are at war, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about building a better future.”

The UK’s supermarkets and retailers must now seize this opportunity to stock more ISO-certified, EU/UK/US quality-controlled, competitively priced Ukrainian products that will put real meaning to the E and the S in their ESG programmes.

I often hear financiers and business owners in rich western countries say they would love to be more genuinely sustainable, but they have so many competing priorities. After two-and-a-half years of war, Ridne and their partners are still thinking about the future of their country and their economy.

If they can put social and economic sustainability at the centre of their businesses, with all the challenges they face, then none of us can have any excuse not to do so as well.