Ukrainian silos are overflowing with the newly harvested winter harvest. Grain harvesting does not seem to be the main problem in a country that, together with Russia, accounted for around 30% of world wheat exports in the last three years. The most urgent concern is another: how to get these basic goods to the countries that need them. The Russian army in the Black Sea and the installation of defensive mines by the Ukrainian side have paralyzed exports through the country's main ports. It happens in Odessa, in Berdyansk or in Mariupol. According to data from Germany, there are 25 million tons of grain that cannot be exported. For this reason, the international community is mobilizing to try to unblock the situation. If not, a global food crisis may break out. India has just banned exports due to the sudden increase in the prices of this cereal. You want to ensure domestic consumption. The price of wheat hit a record high again on Monday as a result.
The risk is that due to the scarcity of wheat and fertilizers due to the war, added to the effects of climate change and after two years of the pandemic, tens of millions of people around the world will be dragged into food insecurity. The UN warns that if nothing is done, the global crisis could last for several years. The organization's secretary general, António Guterres, calls on Russia to allow the export of cereals stored in Ukrainian ports, while asking Western countries to allow Russian fertilizers access to world markets. "The complex security, economic and financial implications require goodwill on all sides," he warned in New York.
The World Bank has announced an additional 12,000 million to mitigate these devastating effects, most of which will go to favor agricultural projects in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe or Asia. Since Russia sent its troops to Ukraine, Kyiv has been forced to export by road, rail or through ports on the Danube. It is much more difficult. Crossing borders is complicated, the roads cannot handle so much heavy traffic, the capacity of alternative ports is limited, explains The Economist.
"It will be necessary for the ports to be demined, so all the parties involved should open a parenthesis of collaboration to avoid a scenario that would kill millions and millions of people in the poorest part of the world," he warned in the Italian Senate. Prime Minister Mario Draghi. Italy is organizing a ministerial dialogue with the Mediterranean countries for June 8, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), based in Rome, with the aim of outlining intervention measures necessary given the serious repercussions of the war on food security, in particular in the Mediterranean and African countries, major importers of Ukrainian wheat.
These countries especially bought Ukrainian wheat because of its low costs, which included transport costs, which have now skyrocketed. Some experts have already been saying for weeks that rising bread prices could seriously destabilize much of the Arab world's economies.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also discussed on Thursday the possibility of opening new routes, both sea and land, for this purpose. "If you have a heart, please open the ports," the executive director of the World Food Program, David Beasley, told Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, the requests do not convince Moscow, with problems on the battlefield, which is trying to attack the Ukrainian economy. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said yesterday that if the United Nations wants to open the Black Sea ports to export wheat, current Western sanctions should be reviewed. The Kremlin said Thursday that Russia is preparing for a possible global food crisis from the end of 2021, long before it orders its troops to enter Ukraine, with restrictions or taxes on commodity exports.
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