The first shipment of Ukrainian grain leaving the Black Sea port of Odesa and headed for Lebanon is a positive development on an international level in part due to decreasing food prices around the world, Patrick Mardini, an economist at Leadenhall International for Market Solutions, told Al Jazeera.
“If the ships can leave Ukraine and sell their grain, this is better situation for international markets including lower prices of food – and we are starting to see that … the price of wheat, corn I mean, most all those grains is indeed 50 percent higher than it was in 2020, but it’s half the peak that we reached some months ago,” he said from Beirut.