Poland's Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk said it would take three to four months to build temporary granaries on the border with Ukraine to export grain.

He noted that the proposal by US President Joe Biden announced the day before to provide infrastructure for the export of grain on the Polish-Ukrainian border is “extremely interesting”, but many practical issues need to be resolved to implement it. Kowalczyk wrote about this on Facebook.

The statement by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, about the intention to build temporary silos in Poland, near the border with Ukraine, is a remarkably interesting idea. However, for the time being it is a preliminary declaration which requires many detailed solutions to be worked out.

These include location, size, ancillary infrastructure, funding sources, ownership issues and many similar matters.

In my opinion, any silos should be located where the wide railway tracks from Ukraine end. Then it will be easier to reload the grain and thus increase transhipment capacity.

Henryk Kowalczyk

Presently, the maximum amount of grain that can be transhipped in Poland is approximately 1.5 million tonnes monthly, while Ukraine's needs are about 5 million tonnes per month.

At the same time, it should be noted that this type of investment will take approximately three to four months to complete.

Henryk Kowalczyk