ISTANBUL, Turkey — Hulking ships
carrying Ukrainian wheat and other grains are backed up along the Bosporus in
Istanbul as they await inspections before moving on to ports around the world.
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The number of ships sailing through this
narrow strait, which connects Black Sea ports to wider waters, plummeted when
Russia invaded Ukraine 10 months ago and imposed a naval blockade. Under
diplomatic pressure, Moscow has begun allowing some vessels to pass, but it
continues to restrict most shipments from Ukraine, which together with Russia
once exported a quarter of the world’s wheat.
And at the few Ukrainian ports that are
operational, Russia’s missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid
periodically cripple the grain terminals where wheat and corn are loaded onto
ships.
An enduring global food crisis has become
one of the farthest-reaching consequences of Russia’s war, contributing to
widespread starvation, poverty, and premature deaths.
The US and allies are struggling to reduce
the damage. American officials are organizing efforts to help Ukrainian farmers
get food out of their country through rail and road networks that connect to
Eastern Europe and on barges traveling up the Danube River.
The United Nations World Food Program estimates that more than 345 million people are suffering from or at risk of acute food insecurity, more than double the number from 2019.
But as deep winter sets in and Russia
presses assaults on Ukraine’s infrastructure, the crisis is worsening. Food
shortages are already being exacerbated by a drought in the Horn of Africa and
unusually harsh weather in other parts of the world.
Attacking the breadbasketThe United Nations World Food Program
estimates that more than 345 million people are suffering from or at risk of
acute food insecurity, more than double the number from 2019.
“We’re dealing now with a massive food
insecurity crisis,” Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said last month
at a summit with African leaders in Washington. “It’s the product of a lot of
things, as we all know,” he said, “including Russia’s aggression against
Ukraine.”
The food shortages and high prices are
causing intense pain across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. US officials are
especially worried about Afghanistan and Yemen, which have been ravaged by war.
Egypt, Lebanon, and other big food-importing nations are finding it difficult
to pay their debts and other expenses because costs have surged. Even in
wealthy countries like the US and Britain, soaring inflation driven in part by
the war’s disruptions has left poorer people without enough to eat.
“By attacking Ukraine, the breadbasket of
the world, Putin is attacking the world’s poor, spiking global hunger when
people are already on the brink of famine,” said Samantha Power, administrator
of the US Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Ukrainians are likening the events to the
Holodomor, when Josef Stalin engineered a famine in Soviet-ruled Ukraine 90
years ago that killed millions.
Pushing people into poverty
Blinken announced on December 20 that the
US government would begin granting blanket exceptions to its economic sanctions
programs worldwide to ensure that food aid and other assistance kept flowing.
The action is intended to ensure that companies and organizations do not
withhold assistance for fear of running afoul of US sanctions.
State Department officials said it was the
most significant change to US sanctions policy in years. The UN Security
Council adopted a similar resolution on sanctions last month.
But Russia’s intentional disruption of
global food supplies poses an entirely different problem.
Moscow has restricted its own exports,
increasing costs elsewhere. Most important, it has stopped sales of fertilizer,
needed by the world’s farmers. Before the war, Russia was the biggest exporter
of fertilizer.
“By attacking Ukraine, the breadbasket of the world, Putin is attacking the world’s poor, spiking global hunger when people are already on the brink of famine.”
Its hostilities in Ukraine have also had a
major effect. From March to November, Ukraine exported an average of 3.5
million metric tonnes of grains and oilseeds per month, a steep drop from the 5
million to 7 million metric tonnes per month it exported before the war began
in February, according to data from the country’s Ministry of Agrarian Policy
and Food.
That number would be lower if not for an
agreement forged in July by the UN, Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine, called the
Black Sea Grain Initiative, in which Russia agreed to allow exports from three
Ukrainian seaports.
Russia continues to block seven of the 13
ports used by Ukraine. (Ukraine has 18 ports, but five are in Crimea, which
Russia seized in 2014.) Besides the three on the Black Sea, three on the Danube
are operational.
The initial deal was only for four months
but was extended in November for another four months. When Russia threatened to
leave it in October, global food prices surged 5 to 6 percent, said Isobel
Coleman, a deputy administrator at USAID.
“The effects of this war are hugely, hugely
disruptive,” she said. “Putin is pushing millions of people into poverty.”
The global impactWhile increases in the price of food last
year have been particularly sharp in the Middle East, North Africa, and South
America, no region has been immune.
“You’re looking at price increases of everything
from 60 percent in the US to 1,900 percent in Sudan,” said Sara Menker, CEO of
Gro Intelligence, a platform for climate and agriculture data that tracks food
prices.
Before the war, food prices had climbed to
their highest levels in over a decade because of pandemic disruptions in the
supply chain and pervasive drought.
The US, Brazil, and Argentina, key grain
producers for the world, have experienced three consecutive years of drought.
The level of the Mississippi River fell so much that the barges that carry
American grain to ports were temporarily grounded.
The weakening of many foreign currencies
against the US dollar has also forced some countries to buy less food on the
international market than in years past.
“There were a lot of structural issues, and
then the war just made it that much worse,” Menker said.
A call to strengthen trade cooperationOver the last six months, food prices have
retreated from highs reached in the spring, according to an index compiled by
the UN. But they remain much higher than in previous years.
“The effects of this war are hugely, hugely disruptive. Putin is pushing millions of people into poverty.”
An uncertainty for farmers this winter is
the soaring price of fertilizer, one of their biggest costs.
Farmers have passed on the higher cost by
increasing the price of food products. And many farmers are using less
fertilizer in their fields. That will result in lower crop yields in the coming
seasons, pushing food prices higher.
Subsistence farms, which produce nearly a
third of the world’s food, are being hit harder, Coleman said.
In a communiqué issued at the close of
their meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in November, leaders of the Group of 20
leading rich and developing nations said they were deeply concerned by the
challenges to global food security and pledged to support the international
efforts to keep food supply chains functioning.
“We need to strengthen trade cooperation,
not weaken it,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade
Organization, said at the summit.
The US government spends about $2 billion
per year on global food security, and it started a program called Feed the
Future after the last big food crisis, in 2010, that now encompasses 20
countries.
Since the start of the Ukraine war, the US has
provided more than $11 billion to address the food crisis. That includes a $100
million program called AGRI-Ukraine, which has helped about 13,000 farmers in
Ukraine — 27 percent of the total — gain access to financing, technology,
transportation, seeds, fertilizer, bags, and mobile storage units, Coleman
said.
The efforts could help rebuild the country
while alleviating the global food crisis — one-fifth of Ukraine’s economy is in
the agriculture sector, and a fifth of the country’s labor force is connected
to it.
“It’s hugely important for Ukraine’s
economy,” she said, “and for Ukraine’s economic survival.”
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