Russia is preparing for a nuclear war and is stockpiling strategic buckwheat – expert
20 June 09:54
Russia is accumulating strategic stocks of buckwheat in case of global disasters, including nuclear war. Sergey Gromovoy, Executive Director of the International Buckwheat Association, said this in an interview with "Komersant Ukrainian" .
“Russia holds strategic reserves of buckwheat. It grows more than 1.2 million tons a year and consumes 600-700 thousand tons. The rest is in stocks. Why? Because buckwheat is the only crop that grows on radiation-contaminated land and does not mutate. In the Soviet Union, it was grown specifically for nuclear winter. Russia is preparing for a nuclear scenario, and buckwheat plays a role here, like fuel or salt,” he explains.
However, this is not the only problem, Hromovyi continued. According to him, due to the trade agreement with Kazakhstan, Russian groats may once again legally reach the shelves of Ukrainian stores.
“Through the free trade agreement with Kazakhstan, Russian buckwheat has already returned to our market in 2022-2023. Russia built four cereal mills near the border with Kazakhstan, supplied its raw materials there, labeled them “made in Kazakhstan” and brought them to us. We have this “hole” in the import legislation,” says Gromovoy.
The problem is that Russian buckwheat is twice as cheap, thanks to government support, easier logistics and mass production, the expert said. And if Ukraine is unable to cover its own demand, cheap imports will displace local producers, he warns.
