Russia’s war in Ukraine triggered historic food crisis

Grain is once again leaving Ukrainian ports. The price of fertilizer is dropping dramatically. Billions of dollars in aid were mobilized.

However, the world is still grappling with the worst food crisis in modern history, while Russia’s war in Ukraine has shaken global agricultural systems already struggling with the effects of extreme weather and the pandemic.

Market conditions may have improved in recent months, but experts don’t expect imminent relief.

That means more pain for vulnerable communities already struggling with hunger. It also increases the risk of starvation and starvation in countries like Somalia, which is facing what the UN describes as a “catastrophic” food emergency.

“All the main causes of the food crisis are still with us – conflict, Covid, climate change, high fuel prices,” he said. Cary Fowler US Special Envoy for Global Food Security, CNN .

“I think we have to prepare for 2023 to be a tough year.”

The issue is on the agenda of government and business leaders heading to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

It will vie for the attention of attendees who discuss topics ranging from energy costs and maintaining global security to artificial intelligence and demographic changes.

david beasley head of the UN World Food Programme, tweeted that the elite meeting comes at a “critical time”.

His agency received $14 billion in 2022, an unprecedented sum that included more than $7 billion from the United States. This has helped provide food and assistance to an estimated 160 million people.

High food prices mean funding cannot go that far, and Russia’s war continues to generate volatility. More work also needs to be done to increase food supplies in countries with the greatest need.

“The ranks of food insecurity are growing faster than our capacity to provide humanitarian assistance,” said Fowler. “We cannot get out of this crisis by providing food aid.”

Highest food prices ever recorded

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, food prices were at their highest level in a decade due to scrambled supply chains and extreme weather events, such as the worst drought in nearly a century in central and southern Brazil.

Record prices for natural gas – a key input for making nitrogen-based fertilizers – have also become a nightmare for farmers.

Then came the war.

Ukraine typically supplies around 45 million metric tons of grain to the global market every year and is the world’s largest exporter of sunflower oil. Together with Russia, it accounted for about a quarter of global wheat exports in 2019.

As Russian troops blockaded the country’s ports, the strained food system suffered another shock – this one even harder to bear.

“The crisis in Ukraine has had an ongoing negative impact on world food prices and [acrescentou] even more volatility,” said Abby Maxman CEO of Oxfam America.

“Supply chains and how they flow to places like East Africa and the Horn of Africa are taking huge hits.”

That took the Food Price Index developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to its highest annual level since 2005, rising more than 14% from 2021.

In 2022, the number of people struggling with acute food insecurity – that is, their access to food was so restricted that it threatened their lives and livelihoods – skyrocketed from 135 million to 345 million in 2019.

There were some signs of improvement. The index has fallen for nine consecutive months, and its December value was below that of a year ago. A big factor is the sharp drop in the price of vegetable oils.

Supplies are high and demand is low as the economy slows and fears of recession take hold.

The deal to restart Ukraine’s food exports via the Black Sea allowed it to ship more than 12 million metric tons of grains and other foodstuffs by early December. And the fall in energy prices has helped to reduce the cost of fertilizers.

“At the moment, things are moving in the right direction,” said Jonathan Haines, senior analyst at Gro Intelligence, a research firm. But concerns remain, especially as food prices appear to have stabilized at high levels.

Fertilizer remains expensive on a historical basis, and farmers have used less to save costs; that may reduce crop yields in future seasons.

The swift reversal of coronavirus restrictions in China means the country’s demand for agricultural products could suddenly skyrocket, pushing prices up again.

In addition, Ukrainian and US officials said Russia is delaying inspections of ships loaded with grain in Black Sea ports, leading to costly backups and delays.

Russia “is not helping to alleviate the food crisis by slowing down grain inspections,” Fowler said.

Unpredictable and extreme weather also poses a risk after eight of the hottest years on record.

The past 12 months have seen unprecedented heat in Europe, devastating floods in Pakistan, drought in the corn belt in the United States and severe drought in South America linked to the La Niña phenomenon.

“We’ve been experiencing a lot of climate disruption,” Haines said. “It’s a big unknown.”

The far-reaching costs of war

The unrest in the global food market has increased queues of poor and hungry people around the world, and monitoring conditions are worried about the future.

“We really are in a moment where we see the increase in poverty because of all these shocks, especially in Africa,” he said. Dina Esposito USAID’s global food crisis coordinator, who is traveling with Fowler to Malawi and Zambia this week.

Governments, still hard hit by the pandemic, have less bandwidth to provide assistance, especially given rapidly rising interest rates – which require heavier debt payments – and the strong dollar, which makes importing food more expensive. .

Farm prices in local currency are up 142% in Malawi and 120% in Zambia since the start of 2020, according to an analysis by Gro Intelligence.

Meanwhile, countries already on the edge of the abyss, such as drought-stricken Somalia, were pushed even further to the brink. Aid groups estimate that more than 90% of the wheat consumed in the country comes from Russia and Ukraine.

Oxfam’s Maxman, who traveled there in September, said disruptions to food supplies were obvious in the markets.

Last summer, a senior nutrition manager at a clinic run by the International Rescue Committee in Mogadishu told CNN that the number of cases had increased by 80% in one month and that it was seeing a staggering 265% increase in severe malnutrition in underage children. five.

“It’s the compound effects that do the most harm to those least responsible for what’s happening,” Maxman said.