The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has announced a grant of $3 million from the Australia-based Minderoo Foundation in support of international efforts to provide farmers in Ukraine with immediate access to granaries for storing this year’s harvest.

The grant to FAO’s Grain Storage Support Strategy project—implemented in coordination with the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine—will bolster efforts by Japan and Canada to cover grain storage through 2023, enable an additional 264.4 thousand tons of grain and oilseed to be stored in Ukraine, and provide related technical support and equipment. The funds—the project’s first privately sourced support—are to be distributed to farmers enrolled in the ministry’s State Agrarian Register. To date, FAO has raised $60 million for the project.

The damage to granaries and agricultural infrastructure following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the interruption of exports through the Black Sea has threatened food access for countries in Northern Africa and Central Asia, which rely on crops grown in Ukraine to feed their people.

“The longer-term impact of our partnership with FAO will be strengthening food security at the household level in Ukraine, protecting the livelihoods of Ukrainian farmers, and ensuring other dependent countries access to adequate supplies of grain, at a manageable cost,” said Minderoo Foundation co-founder Andrew Forrest, who, with his wife, Nicola, joined the Giving Pledge in 2013.

“People across the world are going hungry and suffering unnecessarily through no fault of their own,” said Nicola Forrest. “We hope our support helps to alleviate this.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/bernardbodo)