The war in Ukraine is starving fragile countries

The consequences of the war in Ukraine are being felt on food security. There are many countries that depend on Russian and Ukrainian food supplies, and many of these are among the least developed, low-income and food-deficit countries, such as Eritrea which in 2021 procured almost all of its wheat imports from Russian Federation (53%) and Ukraine (47%). And many countries in North Africa and West and Central Asia are also heavily dependent on these markets. According to the new Food Outlook published today by the FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), the war in Ukraine is causing huge victims, migration, food insecurity and malnutrition, in the country and internationally, because it involves two of the most important world agricultural commodity markets: the Russian Federation and Ukraine, whose world contribution in the cereals sector is particularly significant. In the global wheat market, for example, in the ranking of the top seven exporters (which together accounted for 89% of international trade in 2021) the Russian Federation came second and Ukraine sixth. Between 2016-17 and 2020-21, the two countries together accounted for an average of 19, 14 and 4% of world barley, wheat and maize production, respectively. Consequently, the two countries play an important procurement role in the international food trade. Ukraine’s ability to produce and export food in the future is of concern

On the export front, the halt to maritime transport with the blocking of Ukrainian ports was particularly damaging, because about 90% of the sales of Ukrainian goods out of the country depend on this. For food exports, the hypothesis of using alternative routes, such as rail and road transport, represents a “constrained” solution – underlines the report – tied to infrastructural damage and the limited availability of wagons and railway gauges caused by the war. And if the present worries, the future may no longer be rosy. “The war has already inflicted immense damage on the agricultural sector in Ukraine, which raises considerable concerns regarding the country’s ability to continue producing and exporting food in the future”, underlines the FAO analysis. Estimates for production 2022/23 are already down: blame for the consequences of the war on access to agricultural land, on the availability of manpower and fuel, on the presence of unexploded ordnance on cultivated areas. And then there are infrastructure damage and transport disruptions that could exacerbate post-harvest losses. War can also undermine Russian agriculture

And Russia? According to the FAO, international sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation in response to the war could inflict direct or indirect economic losses on agriculture. The incomes of Russian farmers risk being adversely affected by the loss of export markets that could result from the sanctions. This in turn could lead farmers themselves to curb the production of those more export-oriented crops. Furthermore, although the Russian Federation is a net exporter of fertilizers, its agriculture is particularly dependent on imports of seeds and pesticides: in 2021, it purchased $ 872 million worth of herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and other pesticides, 58% of which from ‘EU, and $ 409 million worth of’ high value ‘seeds (i.e. hybrids, genetically modified or certified organisms), 68% of which from the EU. This high Russian dependence on EU imports – the report reads – suggests that trade sanctions could take a heavy toll on Russian agricultural production.