This week marks a significant milestone as the UK Government delivers a chemical Grain Verification Scheme (GVS) as part of a new 100 Year Partnership with Ukraine. Developed in collaboration with World Forest ID, the GVS was designed to help customs officials identify stolen Ukrainian grain in international trade.

The news, shared yesterday via a Government press release, has been celebrated by major news outlets in Ukraine, including The Kyiv Post, The Kyiv Independent and European Pravda.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the issue of grain theft and resale has been well documented, resulting in a global range of sanctions. Ukraine, known as the “Breadbasket of Europe,” remains a vital agricultural producer, and tracing its grain is critical to safeguarding Ukrainian farmland and upholding trust and stability in international markets. 

With much of global trade reliant on self declaration, falsifying product origins can be as simple as misdeclaring the source on customs documentation. Without robust mechanisms to verify these claims, misdeclared products can easily enter markets undetected, undermining legitimate trade and, in the case of Russian trade, funding conflict.

We are proud to have played a key role in delivering this G7-sponsored initiative, supported by the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affair's investment in public-good science. World Forest ID worked with partners across Ukraine and neighboring countries, developing the reference collection that underpins the GVS, drawing on two years of work by collectors sampling wheat, barley, maize, and sunflower. 

Building on the methodologies and scientific findings peer-reviewed in Nature Plants last year, these samples have undergone analysis using Trace Element and Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis, which reveal the unique chemical signatures of the soil where the crops were grown. 

Scientific methodologies for this project were developed in collaboration with Laboratory partners Stratum Reservoir, University of Washington, Fera Science and Source Certain.

The data and associated chemical analysis protocols are now being handed over to Ukraine, empowering lawmakers to act in protection of Ukrainian farmers and agricultural exports. The scheme is a powerful step toward protecting natural environments under threat of exploitation and preventing bad actors from profiting from opaque global supply chains.