Various people have asked whether the war in Ukraine threatens food supplies, either globally, or to the West. The answer is that it does, but it is not the only thing that does. Please read the following reports and take them seriously, but without allowing them to send you into a panic. We are by no means the most seriously affected: we are, in fact, relatively well off. Those people who are hungry here in the UK are hungry because of adequate help to buy increasingly expensive food, not because of a lack of food. The situation is far worse elsewhere, where a lack of food is to be expected.
NB: this is something that we should neither minimise or catastrophise. The situation is grim, but it’s not going to be as grim for us as it is for many. Appropriate actions would be to reduce waste, minimise expense, and perhaps consider how we can help ourselves and others around us. NB also, farmers here are already deciding to plant fields that would otherwise have been fallowed.
The World Bank Report 28th February: there is already a crisis.
The World Bank reports that:
“Numerous countries are experiencing high food price inflation at the retail level, reflecting labour shortages, a sharp rise in the price of fertilizer, currency devaluations, and other factors. Rising food prices have a greater impact on people in low- and middle-income countries since they spend a larger share of their income on food than people in high-income countries.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is a major shock for global commodity markets and is likely to exacerbate food price inflation in emerging markets and developing economies. Global commodity markets face upside risks through the following channels: reduction in grain supplies, higher energy prices, higher fertilizer prices, and trade disruption due to shutting down of major ports. Both Russia and Ukraine are major suppliers of wheat, maize, barley, and vegetable (sunflower) oil.
Rapid phone surveys done by the World Bank in 83 countries show a significant number of people running out of food or reducing their consumption. Reduced calorie intake and compromised nutrition threaten gains in poverty reduction and health and could have lasting impacts on the cognitive development of young children. Between 720 and 811 million people in the world went hungry in 2020, according to the UN report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World. Looking at the middle of the projected range (768 million), around 118 million more people were facing chronic hunger in 2020 than in 2019. Using a different indicator that tracks year-round access to adequate food, nearly 2.37 billion people (or 30% of the global population) lacked access to adequate food in 2020 – a rise of 320 million in just one year.
Recent data also confirms significant increases in the number of people who faced acute food insecurity in 2020-2021. Acute food insecurity is defined as when a person’s life or livelihood is in immediate danger because of lack of food. According to Global Network Against Food Crises, an estimated 161 million people experienced “crisis” levels of acute food insecurity in 2021, a nearly 4% increase over the prior year. Additionally, 227 million people were estimated to be in “stressed” acute food insecurity – one step away from crisis, in 2021, almost 7% more than the previous year.
Hunger was trending upward even before the COVID-19 pandemic, which exacerbated existing effects from extreme climate events, conflict, and other shocks to economic opportunities. Of the 161 million people experiencing crisis conditions in 2021, 81% (or 132 million) lived in countries affected by Fragility, Conflict and Violence.”
What’s the situation to date?
The World Food Programme Report, March 11th.
Increased costs are set to affect World Food Programme operations and impact the most vulnerable well beyond Ukraine’s borders
The World Food Programme (WFP) is working to minimize the knock-on effects of rising food and energy prices – triggered by the Ukraine conflict – on hunger around the world, while it looks to scale up operations within the country and reach 3.1 million people. “[As] hunger threatens Ukraine directly, the fallout from this war will spread across the globe. Russia and Ukraine together export about 30 percent of the world’s wheat,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley.
A report just published by WFP warns that the costs of its global operations look set to increase by US$29 million a month. When added to pre-existing increases of US$42 million (since 2019), the total additional costs facing WFP are US$71 million per month.
This could spell disaster for millions, as WFP had already warned that 2022 would be a year of catastrophic hunger, with 44 million people in 38 countries teetering on the edge of famine.
As well as exporting a significant proportion of the world’s wheat, over the past ten years Ukraine has become WFP’s biggest supplier of foods such as sunflower oil.
With Russia being such a huge player in the energy sector, inevitable prices hikes resulting from sanctions on its oil and gas will limit access to food for some of the most vulnerable people in the world, many of whom are already facing super-high inflation, according to the report.
Adding to woes, shipping costs are multiplying with ‘war risk’ insurance premiums of up to US$300,00 for some voyages.
“With our funding levelling off because donor nations’ treasuries are so stretched, we have had to slash rations to refugees and other vulnerable populations across East Africa and the Middle East,” he added. “Halved rations mean hungry children eating the equivalent of just one bowl of cereal each day.”
Places where WFP has had to reduce rations include Yemen, one of the world’s worst hunger crises, where 16.2 million people are food insecure and there are pockets of famine-like conditions.
With Ukrainian ports closed and Russian grain deals on pause because of sanctions, 13.5 million tons of wheat and 16 million tons of maize are currently frozen in Russia and Ukraine, WFP’s report states. Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Syria are particularly vulnerable to any hold-up on wheat imports, on which millions of people are heavily dependent. These countries, where WFP is running emergency operations, are already reeling from the combined effect of conflict, climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and rising costs.
In the Middle East and North Africa region, higher food and energy prices also spell misery for Lebanon and Yemen, while complications are expected in East Africa, where 84 percent of wheat demand is met by imports.
The report warns of “cancellations or delays of WFP shipments from the port of Odessa” which will “likely primarily affect West Africa,” where the cargo is needed for distributions from May onwards.
Because of scarcity, war, the pandemic’s economic aftershocks and crude oil prices near a 13-year high, WFP is already paying 30 percent more for food than it was in 2019,” said Beasley. “If the Black Sea transport corridors are disrupted further by this burgeoning war, transport prices will spike in lockstep, doubling or even tripling.”
He added: “Very soon, surviving Ukrainian farmers will be trying to seed their spring fields in some of the world’s richest earth, from where WFP had hitherto drawn more than half our wheat.” But the war will likely hinder that.
“If Ukrainian fields lie fallow this year, aid agencies such as ours will be forced to source new markets to compensate for the loss of some of the world’s best wheat. Doing so will come at a vastly inflated cost.”
This week, Beasley visited border towns in Poland where WFP staff are ramping up operations to support the disrupted commercial supply chain inside Ukraine and deliver assistance to over 3 million people. Working with local NGO Tarilka, WFP has already started a 10-day daily distribution of 30,000 loaves of bread in Kharkiv, benefiting 60,000 people, as it seeks to scale up exponentially. WFP has also mobilized a consignment of wheat flour that is being moved by rail to Kyiv.
“Even as humanitarians and governments feed those who make it out, the systems that feed the tens of millions trapped inside Ukraine are falling apart: trucks and trains destroyed, airports bombed, bridges fallen, supermarkets emptied and warehouses drained,” said Beasley.””
What is happening in Ukraine? Reuters reports:
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens millions of tiny spring-time sprouts that should emerge from stalks of dormant winter wheat in the coming weeks. If the farmers can’t feed those crops soon, far fewer of the so-called tillers will spout, jeopardizing a national wheat harvest on which millions in the developing world depend.
The wheat was planted last autumn, which, after a brief growing period, fell dormant for the winter. Before the grain returns to life, however, farmers typically spread fertilizer that encourages the tillers to grow off the main stalks. Each stalk can have three or four tillers, increasing the yield per wheat stalk exponentially.
But Ukrainian farmers – who produced a record grain crop last year – say they now are short of fertilizer, as well as pesticides and herbicides. And even if they had enough of those materials, they can’t get enough fuel to power their equipment, they add.
Elena Neroba, a Kyiv-based business development manager at grain brokerage Maxigrain, said Ukraine’s winter wheat yields could fall by 15% compared to recent years if fertilizers aren’t applied now. Some farmers warn the situation could be much worse.
Some Ukrainian farmers told Reuters their wheat yields could be cut in half, and perhaps by more, which has implications far beyond Ukraine. Countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen and others have come to rely on Ukrainian wheat in recent years. The war has already caused wheat prices to skyrocket – rising by 50% in the last month.
The Ukrainian farming crisis comes as food prices around the world already have been spiking for months amid global supply chain problems attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. World food prices hit a record high in February, and have risen over 24% in a year, the U.N. food agency said last week. Agriculture ministers from the world’s seven largest advanced economies are due Friday to discuss in a virtual meeting the impact of Russia’s invasion on global food security and how best to stabilize food markets.
Ukraine and Russia are major wheat exporters, together accounting for about a third of world exports- almost all of which passes through the Black Sea.
Svein Tore Holsether, president of Norway-based Yara International, the world’s largest maker of nitrogen-based fertilizers, said he is worried that tens of millions of people will suffer food shortages because of the farming crisis in Ukraine. “For me, it’s not whether we are moving into a global food crisis,” he said. “It’s how large the crisis will be.”
Ukrainian officials say they are still hopeful the country will have a relatively successful year. Much of that hope rests with farmers in the west of the country, which, so far, remains distant from the shooting.
But officials are taking measures to protect domestic supplies to ensure Ukraine’s population gets fed – posing another possible hit to export shipments. Agriculture Minister Roman Leshchenko said on Tuesday the country was banning the export of various staples, including wheat. Leshchenko has acknowledged the threat to Ukraine’s food supply and that the government was doing what it can to help farmers.
“We understand that food for the entire state depends on what will be in the fields,” he said in televised remarks Monday.
Moscow says it is conducting a special military operation in Ukraine to demilitarize and capture dangerous nationalists. It has denied deliberately targeting civilians and civil infrastructure, despite documented attacks on hospitals, apartment buildings and railroads.
Grain exports are a cornerstone of Ukraine’s economy.
In the coming weeks, farmers should also start planting other crops, such as corn and sunflowers, but they are struggling to get the seeds they need, said Dykun Andriy, chairman of the Ukrainian Agricultural Council, which represents about 1,000 farmers cultivating five million hectares.
Andriy warned that fuel is also a critical problem now. Unless farmers can get diesel to run their equipment, spring farmwork will be impossible and this year’s harvests doomed. “Farmers are desperate,” he said. “There is a big risk that we don’t have enough food to feed our people.”
Maxigrain’s Neroba said farmers are facing fuel shortages because military needs take priority.
Ukrainian farmer Oleksandr Chumak said little work is happening in his fields, some 200 km north of the Black Sea port of Odessa. He farms 3,000 hectares (about 7,500 acres) where he grows wheat, corn, sunflowers and rapeseed. Even if he had enough fuel to get his equipment into the fields, he said he had insufficient fertilizer for all of his crops and no herbicides.
“Usually we have maybe six to seven tons (of wheat) per hectare. This year, I think that if we get three tons per hectare, it will be very good,” Chumak said. He added he remains hopeful that Ukrainian farmers will find a way to grow enough food to feed their countrymen, but he does not expect much will be exported.
In northern Ukraine, he said friends of his have been reduced to skimming fuel from a ditch that was filled with diesel after a Russian attack on a train spilled fuel from several tankers. Other friends, in the occupied areas near Kherson, are scavenging diesel from ambushed and abandoned Russian tanker convoys, Chumak said.
Currently, he spends much of his time preparing for a Russian assault. “I live in Odessa. Every day I see rockets fly over my house.”
Val Sigaev, a grain broker at R.J. O’Brien in Kyiv, who evacuated last week, said it is unclear how much of the usual spring farming — planting and fertilizing — would be possible. High prices for natural gas – a major input for fertilizer – sent fertilizer prices up, so some farmers postponed purchases.
“Some people think we could plant as much as half of the crop,” Sigaev said. “Others say that only the West will see plantings and what is produced will be strictly for Ukrainian needs.”
The situation is especially dire in the southern port city of Kherson, the first Ukrainian city Russia captured after invading the country on Feb. 24. Spring-like weather adds to farmers’ urgency, if they don’t tend to their fields now this year’s harvest will be a bust.
Andrii Pastushenko is the general manager of a 1,500-hectare farm just west of the city, near the mouth of the Dnipro River. Last autumn, they sowed about 1,000 hectares of wheat, barley and rapeseed. His farm workers need to get into those fields now, but can’t, he says, and they’ve lost access to fuel. “We’re completely cut off from the civilized world and the rest of Ukraine.”
Additionally, many of Pastushenko’s 80 workers cannot come to work at the farm because they live a few miles to the north, across the front line. The manager’s problems are compounded because the region is drier than other agricultural areas of the country and his fields need to be irrigated. And that too requires fuel.
Unlike many, Pastushenko has a 50-metric ton nitrogen-based fertilizer stockpile. With the fighting all around him, however, he’s not sure that’s such a good thing: Fertilizer is highly explosive. “If something drops from a helicopter, it could blow the whole place,” he said.
He said he fears the harvest will be poor. Last year, his wheat and barley fields yielded about five metric tons per hectare. If he doesn’t spray insecticide – which he says he can’t get – and spread fertilizer, he doubts he’ll get a third of that amount.
“I’ve no idea whether we’ll be able to harvest something,” he said. “Something will come off the ground, but it won’t be enough to feed our cattle and pay our staff.”
About 150 km west of Pastushenko’s farm is the Black Sea port of Odessa, which remains under Ukrainian control. In peacetime, much of Ukrainian agricultural exports find their way onto ships at the port, Ukraine’s busiest. Today, no ships are leaving and the city is besieged by Russian forces.
Much of Ukraine’s harvest was due to be exported to North Africa, the Middle East, and the Levant. According to the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP), Ukraine supplies Lebanon with more than half of its imported wheat, Tunisia imports 42 % and Yemen nearly a quarter. Ukraine has grown to become WFP’s largest supplier of food.
For some countries, rising prices could hammer governments as well as consumers because of state food subsidies.
Egypt, which has become increasingly dependent on Ukrainian and Russian wheat over the past decade, heavily subsidizes bread for its population. As the price of wheat rises, so will pressure on the government to raise bread prices, said Sikandra Kurdi, a Dubai-based research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
The country’s food subsidy program currently costs the government about $5.5 billion annually. Currently, nearly two-thirds of the population can buy five loaves of round bread daily for 50 cents a month.
Other developing countries with similar subsidies will also struggle with rising wheat prices. In 2019, protests over bread price increases in Sudan contributed to the overthrow of the head of state, Omar al-Bashir.
For countries that provide large subsidies, rising food prices will mean that either governments take on more debt or consumers will pay higher prices, Kurdi said.”
What can we do about this?
My personal feeling – and I stress that this is a personal feeling, is that I think I should settle for less of everything so that others can have something. I understand that this isn’t an option for those already on or below the breadline. Politically, l will continue to lobby the government for increased payments and help for those in need here, and a commitment to increased investment in our own farming, and a continued push for a fair proportion of international aid – the global North has a lot to answer for in terms of how it deals with the global South – rather than a push for increasing the number of oligarchs – and I refer to UK oligarch, not Russian ones – who are making money at the expense of the poor. But we can only do what we can do: we are all constrained by our circumstances. Within those circumstances, however, if ever there was a time to get involved and shout very loudly indeed about justice, this is the time to do it.
I append a link to the extremely technical Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN Report for those who want to read it.
https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/faoweb/2022/Info-Note-Ukraine-Russian-Federation.pdf
“Black and white bread with wheat spikelets” by wuestenigel is marked with CC BY 2.0.