The main topic of conversation at the moment is the cost of living crisis that has hit in the form of soaring fuel and energy costs. But there is another concerning crisis looming to add to the misery that has already hit hardworking men and women, and that is the rising cost of food.
Both Ukraine and Russia happen to be leading exporters of agricultural products to North African and Middle Eastern nations. These countries are heavily dependent on grains from Kiev, for example, and the price of bread and other basic food items has been escalating. Most of these countries already face internal conflicts and have populations struggling with food insecurity.
For example, approximately 80% of the wheat Lebanon imported in 2020 came from Ukraine. Egypt, in its turn, remains the world’s largest wheat importer, which places this North African country in a very delicate position: about 50 percent of its imports come from the Russian Federation, while another 30 percent come from Ukraine. Libya imports 40% of its wheat from Kiev, and Yemen imports around one third of its wheat from Ukraine, while 8% comes from Russia.
In fact, the potential damage is global. 45% of Ukrainian exports are agricultural-related. It is a leading exporter of poultry, wheat, barley, and corn, and much of its wheat comes precisely from the Eastern Ukrainian areas where most of the heavy conflict is going on.
In fact, the Black Sea area – affected by the current military operations – exports over 12 percent of the food traded globally. Moreover, Ukraine possesses about one-third of the planet’s most fertile soil, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). However, on March 9, Kiev banned exports of grains and many other food items in order to prevent a domestic crisis in times of war, thus disrupting supply chains. This is quite alarming because the planting season is to start this April.
The Russian Federation itself is the largest wheat supplier worldwide and one of the main producers of fertilizers. The problem is that it could halt fertilizer exports as a response to the heavy economic sanctions imposed on the country.
In Latin America, for example, Brazil imports 95% of its nitrogen fertilizers, Moscow being its leading supplier (21% of the amount imported by Brazil comes from there). Brazilian harvests have been much damaged by droughts since 2020. In any case, the increase in fuel prices in itself affects food transport costs, thereby affecting agricultural productivity worldwide.
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