Global food crisis

Experts now have a growing consensus that food security should be placed at par with energy and national security issues. Yet all evidence suggests that the food crisis currently gripping the world, arising from Russia's blatantly unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, is likely to worsen over time. Ukraine and Russia play vital roles in the global food system. Previous supply-demand scenarios mostly evolved around weather and other supply-related events. The Covid-19 pandemic has clearly proved the resilience of the global food system. However, we are in unchartered territory as far as global food supply goes. Few could foresee a war of this magnitude in such a critical food supply hub—especially when it comes to wheat and to fertilisers—as the Black Sea.

To a great extent, the world seems unprepared for the crisis it is faced with. After nearly two months of the war, economists and aid agencies say the world faces merging concerns that could spiral into a global food emergency. The conflict has already slashed Russian and Ukrainian exports of crucial commodities such as wheat, sunflower oil, and corn, a disruption that has rippled across import-reliant countries. At the same time, the ongoing energy crunch has drastically increased fertilizer prices and transportation costs, squeezing the key inputs for global agricultural production. 

According to a desk report published in The Business Post on Friday, the World Bank President David Malpass has predicted a gloomy picture regarding the potential food crisis. In an interview with BBC Malpass said "Record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions of people into poverty and lower nutrition if the crisis continues." The food crisis would disproportionately affect the poverty-stricken masses across the globe. 

The World Bank President said that the war is "affecting food of all different kinds oils, grains, and then it gets into other crops, corn crops because they go up when wheat goes up."

Ironically, the crisis came when food reserves were relatively high. However, as the WB president said, "There will have to be a sharing or sales process to get the food to where needed." 

Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of wheat, corn, barley, rye, sunflower seeds, etc. The two countries supplied about 30 per cent of the global wheat trade. The loss of some of these crops cannot be made up overnight because it takes months to plant and harvest grains. This situation is harder to rectify in many ways than the oil supply crisis. While oil prices have fallen back, wheat prices still trade at near-record levels, a telling sign of what is likely to come in the future. Russia is also one of the world's largest fertiliser producers, which will drive up the prices of nearly all crops in the coming months.

The richer nations are seeing food prices jump up. But at least there is little risk of their population going hungry. Unfortunately, there will be a genuine risk of starvation and even famine in many parts of the developing world. Low-income countries do not have enough money to pay for high food prices. Trade barriers and export restrictions are damaging to all sides, particularly in times of crisis. Experts believe that the worst possible response to the food crisis would be for wealthy nations to halt or heavily restrict exports of key crops. It's tempting in tough times to hold on to all available supplies, but that exacerbates hunger in developing nations. 

In the EU and the US, there is an opportunity to reallocate land currently used to grow crops for biofuels to produce crops for food. An urgent shift from biofuels to food production would be a win for both food security and the climate. The lessons of the current crisis must lead to an urgent transition to a more robust, more sustainable, and equitable global food system for the long term.

We believe that the developed countries should increase financial aid to the World Food Programme and similar initiatives. These organizations respond quickly to needs on the ground and are connected to many suppliers. We understand that the global food crisis cannot be fixed overnight. Still, rich nations can do a lot to prevent widespread hunger and the instability it spawns.