Ukraine will ship 57,000 tonnes of grain to Sudan and Nigeria as part of the 'Grain from Ukraine' humanitarian food programme, the Ukrainian national news agency said.

The agreement was reached at a meeting between the Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry's deputy minister Markiyan Dmytrasevych and the World Food Programme's (WFP) deputy executive director Carl Skau.

Sudan will receive 32,000 tonnes while 25,000 tonnes will be shipped to Nigeria, the news agency said. 

The two sides are also considering the viability of sending humanitarian grain from Ukraine to Somalia, it added.

President Vladimir Zelensky proposed the Grain from Ukraine programme at the 2022 G20 Bali meeting as a strategy to encourage humanitarian shipments to countries in need as well as support Ukrainian grain farmers. 

The programme was officially launched in November 2022, during the food security summit in Kyiv.

Africa has been hit severely by reduced grain shipments from Ukraine as a result of Russia's invasion, as well as increased prices as stockpiles deplete. 

The war has also hampered both Ukraine and Russia's food shipments, which are crucial to Africa.

In a similar effort to alleviate the crisis, President Vladimir Putin assured some African leaders in July that he would give them tens of thousands of tonnes of grain to alleviate food shortages.

The African Union has however said that a ceasefire in Ukraine was required to restore grain supplies to normalize. Leaders from the continent have made visits to Ukraine and Russia to call for an end to the fighting.

(Editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@lseg.com )