A global food crisis looms unless the war in Ukraine stops, as fertilizer prices rise so fast that many farmers can no longer afford them, Russian fertilizer and coal tycoon Andrei Melnichenko said today.
Several of Russia’s richest businessmen have publicly called for peace since President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion on February 24, including Mikhail Friedman, Peter Aven and Oleg Deripaska.
“The events in Ukraine are really tragic. We urgently need peace,” said Melnichenko, a 50-year-old Russian-born Russian-born Ukrainian mother, who was e-mailed by a spokesman.
“One of the victims of this crisis will be agriculture and food,” said Melnichenko, who founded EuroChem, one of Russia’s largest fertilizer producers, moved to Chug, Switzerland, in 2015, and SUEK, leading coal producer in Russia.
Putin warned last Thursday that world food prices could rise due to a jump in fertilizer prices if the West causes problems for Russia’s fertilizer exporters – which account for 13% of world production.
The war “has already led to a jump in prices for fertilizers that are no longer affordable for farmers,” Melnichenko said. He said the food supply chains that had already been disrupted by COVID-19 were now under even greater pressure.
“It will now lead to even higher food inflation in Europe and possibly food shortages in the world’s poorest countries,” he said.
Physics student
Melnichenko, who was just 19 years old when the Soviet Union collapsed, became involved in the foreign exchange market while a physics student at Moscow State University. But then he dropped out to study in the chaotic post-Soviet business world. He founded MDM Bank but in the 1990s was still too young to take part in privatizations under President Boris Yeltsin, which gave the former superpower the best assets to businessmen who would become known as oligarchs because of their political and economic influence. Melnichenko then began buying troubled coal and fertilizer plants. His fortune in 2021 was valued by Forbes at $ 18 billion, making him the 8th richest man in Russia.
On Wednesday, the European Union imposed sanctions on Melnichenko over the Russian invasion. He said his presence at a meeting in the Kremlin between Putin and 36 businessmen organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs showed that he was “one of the leading businessmen in the economy.”
Melnichenko “has nothing to do with the tragic events in Ukraine. He has no political relations,” his spokesman said.
“Paralleling attendance at a meeting by attending a business council, as dozens of businessmen from Russia and Europe have done in the past, and undermining or threatening a country is absurd and does not make sense,” he said. representative.
On March 9, Melnichenko resigned as board member and non-executive director at EuroChem and SUEK, according to his spokesman. EuroChem has production facilities in Russia, Lithuania, Belgium, Brazil and Kazakhstan. Italian police last week seized a 143-meter-long, 530m-euro Melnichenko yacht.
SOURCE: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
Source: Capital
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