Food prices will rise even if the war ends today, says professor

Antônio Márcio Buainain, professor at the Institute of Economics and researcher at the Center for Applied, Agricultural and Environmental Economics at Unicamp, believes that food and energy prices will continue to rise indefinitely.

In an interview with CNN Radio, he explained that “even if the war in Ukraine ends today”, prices will continue to rise successively: “In a world of so much unpredictability, this is one of the few certainties: prices will continue to rise despite the outcome of war.”

According to the expert, this happens because the shock of the conflict was too great: “Ukraine will not plant crops, Russia is also a country that is a big producer. The impact on fuels is reflected in food production costs, it is a certainty.”

In Buainain’s assessment, “it is necessary to take into account that the rise in food and energy prices causes many victims”: “It has an impact as perverse as the direct impacts of the war, we are not so aware of it, especially sectors with more flexible budgets” , who complain about the supermarket, but can pay, which is not the case for most Brazilian families.”

The professor recalls that the dependence on Ukrainian wheat “was not a discovery”, as this had been known for decades.

“In part, agribusiness is very competitive because it has opened up to the world, importing cheaper inputs and technologies and selling to the whole world, this is the key to the success of Brazilian agriculture, which did not happen with the industry, which lost competitiveness , which generates dependence on some important strategic inputs”, he explained.

The professor recalled that, in the short term, “the alternatives are limited”: “We have to look for new sources, fertilizers and energy will be more expensive, in the medium and long term we have alternatives, we have to accelerate the transition to even greener agriculture, reduce dependence on chemical inputs, this pending issue already exists.”