Poor countries in northern Africa, Asia and the Middle East that depend heavily on wheat imports risk suffering significant food insecurity because of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the conflict is poised to drive up already soaring food prices in much of the world, the U.N. food agency warned Friday.
Ukraine and Russia, which are under heavy economic sanctions for invading their neighbor two weeks ago, account for one-third of global grain exports.
With the conflict’s intensity and duration uncertain, “the likely disruptions to agricultural activities of these two major exporters of staple commodities could seriously escalate food insecurity globally when international food and input prices are already high and vulnerable in poor countries,” said Qu Dongyu, director-general of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization.
The U.N. agency, known as FAO, also noted that Russia is the lead producer of fertilizer, and a key fertilizer component — urea — has jumped more than threefold in price in the last 12 months.
There’s also the uncertainty over whether Ukraine’s wheat ready in June can be harvested as “massive population displacement has reduced the number of agricultural laborers and workers. Accessing agricultural fields would be difficult,″ Qu noted.
Ukraine’s ports on the Black Sea are shuttered, and its government this week banned the export of wheat, oats, millet, buckwheat and some other food products to prevent a crisis in its own country.
The ban does not apply to its major global exports of corn and sunflower oil. It and Russia together supply 52% of the world’s sunflower oil exports. They also account for 19% of the world’s barley supply, 14% of wheat and 4% of corn.
