The global food security crisis: Articles

Blaming his decision on nonexistent export restrictions that were allegedly imposed by the West, Vladimir Putin has backed out of a trade deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that permitted Ukrainian grain to be exported from ports on the Black Sea to world markets. Putin is now trying to diminish Ukraine’s ability to export grain, even though he has devastated Ukraine’s 2023 harvest, reducing it by one-third. The Black Sea is now part of the war zone. This threatens the viability of all Black Sea grain exports, including grain sourced from Russia, with severe implications for global food security.

Ukraine’s challenge to Russia’s control of the Black Sea, the resilience of alternative routes on the Danube and pressure from the Global South may persuade Russia to rejoin the grain deal as harvests start in earnest.

EU foreign relations chief Josep Borrell said on Monday (17 July) that Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal is "completely unjustified". Russia is yet again "weaponising the hunger of the people," he said, arguing that the situation is "very serious" for many people worldwide who depend on Ukrainian grains. Russia's decision to cease participation in the Black Sea Initiative, brokered by the UN and Turkey last year to ensure the safe export of Ukrainian grain, means no safety guarantees for shipping food and fertiliser from three Ukrainian seaports — Odessa, Chornomorsk, and Yuzhny/Pivdennyi. 

The Russia-Ukraine grain deal that has been critical to keeping global food prices stable and preventing famine is currently in tatters. On July 17, 2023, Russia said it was pulling out of the year-old deal, which allowed shipments of grains and other foodstuffs to travel past the Russian naval blockade in the Black Sea. And to make matters worse, over the next two days Russia bombed the Ukrainian grain port of Odesa, destroying over 60,000 tons of grain.

In mid-April, several ‘frontline’ European Union member states unilaterally banned (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria) or threatened to ban (Romania) imports of certain agricultural products from Ukraine, citing the need to protect their own farmers against low prices. In response, on 2 May, the European Commission adopted an exceptional, temporary and preventative safeguard measure, replacing the national import bans and restricting the import of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed to those five countries, while allowing transit of the products to the rest of the Union and third countries. The measure ran initially to 5 June but has been prolonged until 15 September, alongside an extension to Ukraine of duty-free, quotafree EU market access.

The Russian war against Ukraine has put at risk a significant share of global food exports, and has contributed significantly to strongly rising global food prices. This has made poor, food-import dependent countries more vulnerable, with potentially serious humanitarian consequences. The crisis also has negative security, migration and foreign policy repercussions for the European Union. The EU and its members have a number of policy levers to address the crisis. These include agricultural, trade, environment, aid, energy, fiscal and foreign policy. However, in the complex interplay of local and global, agricultural and non-agricultural markets, apparently simple solutions can have significant unintended consequences and policy trade-offs must be taken into account.

Additional efforts are underway to improve so-called solidarity lanes that aim to expedite Ukrainian goods towards EU states.

Depuis février 2022, le conflit en Ukraine réveille les consciences sur l’acuité des défis agricoles et la fragilité de la sécurité alimentaire. Les dynamiques d’instabilité générées par cette guerre doivent être mises en perspective: les turbulences actuelles ne sauraient être décorrélées d’une combinaison de tensions qui, progressivement et sur un temps plus long, complexifient l’équation générale de la production agricole et de la quête de nourriture.

The Russian war in Ukraine poses an immediate challenge to the global as well as European food systems. While Russia deliberately weaponises food to create chaos in Europe and beyond, the war’s impacts on food systems, logistical problems, and the unequal distribution of, access to and affordability of food highlight the urgent need to address the fundamental flaws in the existing system.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shaken global food markets, which were already unstable. Food markets’ nervous reaction resulted from Ukraine and Russia’s position as major exporters of many agricultural products, including wheat, corn, sunflower, and rapeseed oil. The war has limited opportunities to sell these products abroad, which, given both countries’ significant share in global exports, has created the risk of shortages in some markets.

The war in Ukraine has highlighted the serious structural deficiencies of a global food system. Resilience to the challenges presented by the global food system is increasingly difficult to achieve. In the short term, this author considers it urgent to avoid the increase in famine in fragile regions and to avoid social unrest due to the increase in food prices. In the medium and long term, it is necessary to carry out a profound transformation of the world food system.

While economic interdependencies do not prevent war, witnessed most recently by Russia’s naked war of conquest in Ukraine, the costs of war in a globalised world spread far and wide. Russia has taken the world’s food markets hostage by blockading Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea. The resulting food price increases make a humanitarian crisis in the world’s poorest countries increasingly likely; this, in turn may lead to regime fragility and turmoil in the international system. The question of lifting the blockade by establishing a human corridor into the port of Odessa has recently been much discussed.

This document is part of a series of analytical reports that discuss conflict and hunger. It explores how different conflict incidents and reactions to them affect food security.

Russian ships and sea mines block Ukrainian Black Sea ports. Before the war, Ukraine exported on average about 6 million tons of agri-commodities monthly to countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Currently, only about 15 to 20 percent of this volume can be exported via rail, Danube river, and trucks (about 700,000 tons in April 2022 and about 1 million tons in May 2022). Also, trade risks related to Russian exports have been increasing due to sanctions by various trade partners and banks. This led to price spikes and supply chain disruptions significantly undermining food security in poor importing countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is also a war on global food security. In February 2022, Russia blockaded all of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, through which all its bulk exports were being shipped. Russia’s war on Ukraine’s grain exports should not be allowed to continue. The collective West needs to open Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, primarily the major ports in Odesa, to mitigate the ongoing crisis in countries suffering from food insecurity, as well as enabling Ukraine to sell the twenty-eight million tons of grain it has in storage.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent disruption of agricultural exports from both countries has had an unwelcome corollary: a surge in export restrictions on agricultural commodities around the world. This casts dark clouds over future food price developments and food supply in net-food-importing countries, especially in a context of global food prices that were at a record high already in the wake of COVID-19. Fear of famine and social unrest is starting to grip the most immediately affected economies in the Middle East, Africa and beyond.

Despite the war that has been raging for more than two months, Ukraine has managed to start this year’s sowing campaign, although estimates are that the areas cultivated will be up to 30% smaller than in 2021. A fuel shortage could also be a problem during this year’s harvest. Nor is it clear what the harvest will look like in the occupied territories. Currently, there is no risk of a food deficit, as the country has very significant grain stocks (about 20 million tonnes), exceeding the annual consumption for some species. However, problems may arise in this regard in the Russian-occupied areas as the occupiers have been confiscating grain.

Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the global economy was suffering from the repercussions of several man-made conflicts, climate shocks, COVID-19 and rising costs — with devastating consequences for poor people in low-income and developing countries. In this analysis the World Food Programme’s chief economist says we must not just address the current crisis but take bold steps to avert future challenges.

The war in Ukraine is having far-reaching repercussions on many countries around the world, including in Africa, where it is affecting food security, job markets and energy prices. This article investigates the early impact of the war on food shortages across Africa and what it could mean for displacement in the continent and beyond.

Significant attention has been paid to the bolstering of energy security after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. However, even as the urgency of the energy crisis dominates headlines, the agricultural supply chain has also come under stress, further spurring inflationary pressures and posing risks to food security that could potentially push millions of people into hunger around the world.

Both Russia and Ukraine are important to global resource markets, particularly for energy, food and fertilizers. This research paper looks at the consequences of the rapid ‘spike’ in prices, which is exacerbated by disruption to supply chains and fears of potential supply shortfalls, and calls for measures to mitigate the ongoing impact and the longer-term risks of market disruption and geopolitical upheaval.

The author of this article states that the breakout of the conflict in Ukraine and the following imposition of heavy Western sanctions on Russia are causing sharp price increases in food and energy commodities - of which both Ukraine and Russia represent key exporters - as well as disruptions to global supply chains, impacting the post-pandemic economic recovery.

Many African countries heavily rely on imports of agricultural commodities and agricultural inputs from Ukraine and Russia, for example wheat, other grains, and fertilizer. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted global access to grains. This policy brief investigates the possible long-term consequences of the conflict on food security in Africa.

The war looks set to create daunting challenges for African countries in areas such as food and energy security. Now more than ever, it is vital for Europe to show solidarity with them.

Conflicts in Ethiopia and Ukraine are exacerbating food scarcity in a region where millions of people already suffer from severe hunger.

Lower food supply and higher prices will persist in the coming months. Global inflation will surge with the combined historic rise in energy and food prices. As the prices of staples surge, humanitarian needs and political risks will increase. The last time food prices reached current highs, they set the stage for the Arab Spring uprisings. A number of countries are already applying export restrictions to secure their own supplies while exacerbating the problems for most vulnerable countries.