Efforts to cope with the food crisis

At the 169th session of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Council in the second week of April, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu warned that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will affect consumers. worldwide as food, energy and fertilizer prices rise. However, a global food crisis can still be averted.

The impact gradually spreads

The FAO says Russia and Ukraine provide nearly 30% of all global wheat exports, 20% of maize and 80% of sunflower, among other essential agricultural products. According to the AP news agency, supply disruptions from these two countries pushed grain prices up 17.1%. Sunflower oil price rose the highest with 23.2%.

Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are also the world’s top fertilizer producers. Fertilizer prices increase forcing farmers to save, reducing yields and increasing input costs, further pushing food prices up.

Newspaper The Guardian (UK) cites the warning of the International Union of Oxfam: Rising food and energy prices could push 250 million people around the world into extreme poverty by piling on the unrecoverable economic damage caused by the pandemic. Covid-19 pandemic.

The Arab News newspaper called the Russia-Ukraine conflict a “perfect storm” and said Arab countries, especially Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Libya and Tunisia – depend heavily on grain imports from Russia and Ukraine. with an import level of up to 60% – distressed when the price of wheat increased by 55% compared to a week before Russia launched a special military operation on February 24.

Local farm worker Vladimir takes a break from plowing fields near the village of Yakovlivka (Ukraine) on April 5, after an air raid outside Kharkiv Photo: REUTERS

By all means maintain the supply

In an article, World Bank Group President David Malpass assessed that within a few weeks, the number of countries applying restrictions on food exports increased by 25%, bringing the total number of countries to implement them. restricted to 35. At the end of March, 53 new measures and policies affecting food exports were applied.

“History shows that these measures will backfire in the worst ways. Over a decade ago, these exacerbated the global food crisis, sending wheat prices up 30 percent.” – Mr. Malpass said.

FAO also mentioned that food crisis – 2008 – and emphasized the need to avoid repeating mistakes, not to disrupt supply chains, not to restrict or tax food exports.

FAO specifically proposed four groups of solutions. Firstly, quickly implement detailed soil maps, support the most vulnerable countries to use fertilizers effectively. Second, have an effective and targeted social protection plan. Third, improve biosecurity measures in neighboring countries of Ukraine to reduce the spread of African swine fever and other zoonoses. Fourth, enhance market transparency and policy dialogue to minimize disruptions to supply chains and ensure the smooth flow of global trade in food and agricultural products.