A United Nations World Food Program (WFP) chartered vessel has delivered fertilizer to Bangladesh, material that had previously been held up in Latvia.
Russian fertilizer firm Uralchem announced on Thursday that it has donated 30,000 metric tons of potash to Bangladesh, describing the move as a humanitarian gesture. The company confirmed that the delivery was carried out with the support of the United Nations World Food Program.
Dmitry Konyaev, CEO of Uralchem, emphasized the vital role of mineral fertilizers in enhancing crop yields and maintaining a consistent food supply.
“Unfortunately, Bangladesh — among the world’s most densely populated nations — confronts various challenges that weaken its food system, ranging from climate extremes associated with global climate change to limitations on expanding arable land,” Konyaev stated. He further noted that through this “humanitarian consignment,” the fertilizer major seeks to “contribute to the sustainable development of Bangladesh’s agricultural sector.”
This latest delivery represents Uralchem’s seventh such contribution in a series of humanitarian aid shipments to developing nations since 2022. To date, the company has provided over 220,000 tons of mineral fertilizers, free of charge, to countries grappling with severe food shortages.
Significantly, the majority of these shipments were transported on WFP-chartered vessels from EU ports and warehouses, reaching countries like Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, and most recently, Bangladesh. Uralchem’s statement indicated that the fertilizers dispatched to Dhaka had been previously “stored in Latvia.”
Previously, Russian officials had highlighted that more than 400,000 metric tons of Russian fertilizers had been stranded in various European ports, including those in Latvia and Estonia, since 2022, following the imposition of unparalleled Western sanctions against Moscow.
These goods were being released in accordance with the Russia-UN Memorandum on normalizing agricultural exports, which was signed in Istanbul in July 2022 as part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The grain agreement, however, collapsed in 2023 after Moscow alleged that Western nations had failed to honor their commitments, particularly concerning Russian fertilizer and food exports.
Concurrently, Latvia’s foreign ministry issued a statement confirming this as the fifth shipment of “mineral fertilizers originating in Russia” and “owned by companies subject to European Union sanctions and stored within Latvian territory.”
The ministry further asserted that the EU member state “continues to provide assistance to countries that have suffered from the food crisis stemming from Russia’s war against Ukraine.”