War in Ukraine sparks concerns over worldwide food shortages

FRANCE 24: Three weeks after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, the war is starting to have devastating effects not only on the ground but in many countries that rely on Ukraine’s important wheat production. The United Nations has warned of a “hunger hurricane”, which is already starting to be felt in Northern Africa.

On March 14, the UN’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a stark warning about the wider threats of the war in Ukraine: world hunger. 

“We must do everything possible to avert a hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system,” he said.

The comment echoed a similar concern voiced by David Beasley, the head of the World Food Programme, just a few days earlier: “The bullets and bombs in Ukraine could take the global hunger crisis to catastrophic levels. Supply chains and food prices will be dramatically impacted,” he said.

Ukraine, along with southwestern Russia, has long been known as “Europe’s breadbasket” thanks to the region’s rich dark soil, chernozem, among the most fertile in the world. The region accounts “for about 15 percent of the world’s wheat production and nearly 30 percent of world exports,” Sébastien Abis, a researcher at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs (IRIS) and Director for the Deemeter Club think tank, which specialises in global agricultural issues, told FRANCE 24.

“But it’s not just wheat,” Abis said, “the two countries account for 80 percent of the world’s sunflower oil production and Ukraine is the world’s fourth largest exporter of maize.”

As the fighting in Ukraine continues and the Russian offensive intensifies along the Black Sea coastline, these important crop producers have now been cut off from the world. “Nothing is leaving the Ukrainian ports anymore,” Abis explained, “and it is impossible to know what the country will be able to produce and harvest in the coming months”.

North Africa is not the only region affected by the wheat shortage. Indonesia is the world’s second largest buyer of Ukrainian wheat and Pakistan, Turkey and several countries in Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa depend on it as well.

“I am particularly concerned about certain West African countries where cereal stocks are very low, especially in Mali, Burkina Faso and Senegal,” Abis said. “For these countries, the current prices are unsustainable.”

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that an additional 8-13 million people worldwide face undernourishment if food exports from Ukraine and Russia are stopped permanently.