The USA has launched a $100 million Agriculture Resilience Initiative (AGRI) to help Ukraine’s agricultural sector amid a worsening global food crisis exacerbated by Russia’s war against Ukraine.

This is reported on the website of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The initiative will be aimed at ensuring continuous production of agricultural products in Ukraine until 2023, as well as solving urgent issues with exports.

Ukrainian farmers will get wider and easier access to financing, as well as to the provision of fuel, fertilizers and pesticides, plant protection products, seeds, and equipment.

In addition, “AGRI-Ukraine” will expand the capacities of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises for drying, temporary storage and processing of agricultural products.

“During the last 4.5 months, the maximum efforts of the President of Ukraine, the Government and the team of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy were aimed at increasing Ukraine's export opportunities, which were blocked due to the war and the inaccessibility of sea ports, as well as financially supporting our farmers so that they could continue to work,” noted Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solskyi.

He expressed hope that this Initiative will make it possible to solve three important issues: storage and export of grain, financial capacity of farmers, development of horticulture and greenhouse farming.

As Samantha Power, Administrator of the US Agency for International Development, said, the goal of the program is to “help farmers get back on their feet and restore the agricultural sector”.

“USAID will work to tailor granaries to individual needs — working with farmer associations — to apply effective technologies in the right places,” the Agency spokesperson said in a statement to CNN. He emphasized that efforts aimed at saving at least part of Ukraine's agriculture are “critically important for the stabilization, recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine,” adding that the program was developed jointly with the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.

USAID is already helping more than 8,000 Ukrainian farmers harvest this year's crop.

The US Agency for International Development also aims to attract an additional $150 million to the fund of the AGRI-Ukraine program from other donors and the private sector, for a total of $250 million.