Russia/Ukraine War: UN Warns Of Imminent Food Scarcity

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A man walks in front of a crater left by an explosion during escalating conflict in Kyiv, Ukraine.  [UNICEF/Anton Skyba]

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,” according to 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.

“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”.

The conflict has already had dramatic consequences for Ukrainians “who are struggling to find food amid the bullets”, he said. But it is also causing concerns for the many countries that depend on Ukrainian wheat and are increasingly worried they will soon be unable to feed their people.

Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria have already started to feel the sting of the wheat-shortage. “The Maghreb countries depend heavily on Ukrainian wheat,” Abis said. “And this year, even more so because they have suffered a major drought which has increased their needs for foreign imports.”

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

“Wheat, more than ever, is becoming a geopolitical issue,” Abi said. “Because behind all this, there is also the question of how countries will position themselves in relation to the Russian market. Will

Russian grain exports continue?