The war in Ukraine has shocked global energy markets. Now the planet faces a deeper crisis: a shortage of food.
A crucial portion of the world’s wheat, maize and barley is stuck in Russia and Ukraine because of the war, while an even larger part of the world’s fertilizers is stuck in Russia and Belarus. As a result, the prices of food and fertilizers are rising worldwide. Since last month’s invasion, wheat prices are up 21 percent, barley prices 33 percent and some fertilizers 40 percent.
Now economists, aid organizations and government officials are warning of the consequences: an increase in world hunger.
The impending disaster exposes the consequences of a major war in the modern era of globalization. Prices for food, fertilizer, oil, gas and even metals like aluminum, nickel and palladium are all rising rapidly — and experts expect worse as the effects pile up.
“Ukraine has only exacerbated catastrophe on top of catastrophe,” said David M. Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program, the United Nations agency that feeds 125 million people a day. “There’s no precedent that comes even close since World War II.”
Ukrainian farms are about to miss critical planting and harvesting seasons. European fertilizer plants are significantly reducing production due to high energy prices. Farmers from Brazil to Texas are cutting back on fertilizers, threatening the size of next crops.
China, facing its worst wheat crop in decades after severe flooding, plans to buy up much more of the world’s dwindling supply. And India, which usually exports a small amount of wheat, has already more than tripled in foreign demand from last year.
Around the world, the result will be even higher messages. In February, US supermarket prices were already up 8.6 percent from a year earlier, the largest increase in 40 years, according to government data. Economists expect the war to push those prices up further.
For those living on the brink of food insecurity, the latest price hike could push many over the edge. After being largely stable for five years, hunger increased by about 18 percent during the pandemic to between 720 million and 811 million people. Earlier this month, the United Nations said the war’s impact on the global food market alone could leave 7.6 million to 13.1 million people extra hungry.
The cost of the World Food Program has already increased by $71 million a month, enough to cut the daily rations for 3.8 million people. “We take food from the hungry to give to the hungry,” Mr. Beasley said.
Rising prices and hunger also give a potentially new dimension to the world view of the war. Can they further fuel anger at Russia and call for intervention? Or would frustration be focused on Western sanctions that help trap food and fertilizer?
While virtually every country will experience higher prices, some places may struggle to find enough food.
Armenia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Eritrea have imported virtually all of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine and need to find new sources. But they compete with much larger buyers, including Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh and Iran, who source more than 60 percent of their wheat from the two warring countries.
And they will all be bidding on an even smaller supply as China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of wheat, is expected to buy much more than usual in global markets this year. On March 5, China revealed that severe flooding last year had delayed the planting of a third of the country’s wheat crop, and now the coming harvest looks bleak.
“This year’s seedling situation can be considered the worst in history,” said China’s Agriculture Minister Tang Renjian.
Rising food prices have long been a catalyst for social and political upheaval in poor African and Arab countries, with many subsidizing staples such as bread to avoid such problems. But their economies and budgets — already strained by the pandemic and high energy costs — are now at risk of succumbing to food costs, economists said.
Tunisia struggled to pay for some of its food imports before the war and is now trying to avoid an economic collapse. Inflation has already sparked protests in Morocco and is fueling renewed unrest and violent repression in Sudan.
“A lot of people think this is just going to mean their bagels are going to get more expensive. And that’s absolutely true, but that’s not the point,” said Ben Isaacson, a longtime agricultural analyst at Scotiabank. North Africa and the Middle East have faced repeated uprisings since the 1970s. “What actually led people to take to the streets and protest?” he said. “It starts with food shortages and food price inflation.”
Countries ravaged by protracted conflict, including Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and Ethiopia, are already facing severe famines that experts fear could worsen soon.
In Afghanistan, aid workers are warning that the humanitarian crisis has already been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, making it more difficult to feed the approximately 23 million Afghans — more than half of the population — who do not have enough to eat.
Nooruddin Zaker Ahmadi, the director of Bashir Navid Complex, an Afghan import company, said prices were rising across the board. It took him five days in Russia this month to find cooking oil. He bought 15 liter boxes for $30 each and will sell them on the Afghan market for $35. Before the war, he sold them for $23.
“The United States thinks it has only sanctioned Russia and its banks,” he said. “But the United States has imposed sanctions all over the world.”
For the global food market, there are few countries worse at being in conflict than Russia and Ukraine. In the past five years, they accounted for nearly 30 percent of global wheat exports, 17 percent of maize, 32 percent of barley, a vital source of livestock feed, and 75 percent of sunflower oil, a major cooking commodity. oil in some parts of the world.
Russia has largely been unable to export food due to sanctions that cut it off financially. Ukraine, meanwhile, has been physically cut off. Russia has blocked the Black Sea from exports and Ukraine doesn’t have enough rail cars to transport food overland.
Now what becomes more worrying is the next harvest, especially in Ukraine. On March 11, Ukraine’s agriculture minister begged his allies for 1,900 rail cars with fuel, saying the country’s farms had run out after supplies were diverted to the military. Without that fuel, Ukrainian farmers would not be able to plant or harvest, he said.
There are other hurdles. The United Nations estimates that up to 30 percent of Ukraine’s farmland could become a war zone. And with millions of Ukrainians fleeing the country or joining the front lines, far fewer people are able to work on the land.
Russian and Ukrainian wheat is not easy to replace. According to the United Nations, supplies are already tight in the United States and Canada, while Argentina is limiting exports and Australia is already at full transport capacity. In the past year, wheat prices have increased by 69 percent. Among other major food exports from Russia and Ukraine, maize prices have increased by 36 percent and barley by 82 percent.
The war also threatens another longer-term shock to food markets: a shortage of fertilizers.
Matt Huie, a farmer near Corpus Christi, Texas, said skyrocketing prices had already forced him to stop applying fertilizer to the grazing fields that feed his hundreds of cows, assuring they will be leaner as they grow. sex. Now he fears that for his next corn crop he will also have to reduce fertilization, which would reduce yields. “We have entered uncharted territory,” he said.
Russia is the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers and supplies about 15 percent of the world’s supply. This month, just as farmers around the world were preparing to plant, Russia told its fertilizer producers to halt exports. Sanctions already made such transactions difficult.
Sanctions have also hit Russia’s closest ally, Belarus, a leading producer of potassium-based fertilizers critical to many key crops, including soybeans and corn. But even before the war in Ukraine, Belarus’ fertilizer exports were blocked due to sanctions over the seizure of a foreign dissident who had been a passenger on a Ryanair plane that was forced to land in the country.
In another ominous signal to fertilizer customers, European fertilizer producers said earlier this month that they were slowing or halting production due to rising energy prices. Many fertilizers are made with natural gas.
The world’s major fertilizers have more than doubled or tripled in price in the past year.
Brazil, the world’s largest producer of soybeans, buys nearly half of its potash fertilizer from Russia and Belarus. It now has only three months of supplies left. The National Soy Farmers Association has instructed members to use as little fertilizer as possible this season. Brazil’s soybean crop, which has already declined due to a severe drought, is now likely to be even smaller.
“They prevent fertilizers from reaching the producing countries,” said Antonio Galvan, the president of the soybean association, who criticized the international sanctions. “How many millions are going to starve to death because of the lack of these fertilizers?”
Brazil sells most of its soybeans to China, which uses much of the crop to feed livestock. Fewer, more expensive soybeans could force farmers to cut back on such fodder, meaning smaller cows, pigs and chickens — and higher prices for meat.
Jon Bakehouse, a corn and soybean farmer in Hastings, Iowa, said he prepaid for fertilizer late last year because he was concerned about an impending shortage.
His fertilizer still hasn’t arrived and he now has less than a month to apply it to his corn crop. Without it, he said, his yield would have been halved.
“You know when they make the cars jump in slow motion and the passengers in them are in the air? That’s what it feels like,” he said. “We’re all kind of hanging in the air, waiting for the car to land. Who knows if it’s a beautiful, soft landing, or a dive in the ditch.”
Reporting contributed by Keith Bradsher from Beijing; André Spigariol from Brasilia; Najim Rahim from Houston; and Safiullah Padshah from Kabul, Afghanistan.
