Fri, Mar 11, 2022 page9

• National security depends on food just as much as oil

  Amid all the talk of US energy independence, few have fretted over the vulnerability of agricultural imports needed to feed Americans

  • By Amanda Little / Bloomberg Opinion
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  While Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is delivering shocks to the energy market and driving up fertilizer prices, the bigger problem has become the soaring cost of wheat. Russia is steering the world toward an increasingly severe food security crisis, compounding the shortages already caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

  More than 70 percent of Ukraine consists of prime agricultural land that produces a major share of the world’s wheat, as well as its corn, barley, rye, sunflower oil and potatoes. Ukraine’s crop exports to the EU, China, India and throughout north Africa and the Middle East are plummeting as Russian forces paralyze Ukrainian ports. They could soon cease altogether.

  Meanwhile, heavy Western sanctions are disrupting the flow of crop exports from Russia, the world’s top wheat producer.

  

  Illustration: Mountain People

  Food security organizations are already hard pressed to deal with spreading hunger. Expanding shortages “will be hell on earth,” the UN Nations World Food Program director David Beasley said last week.

  The threat is greatest in countries already teetering on the edge of famine, and in those that rely heavily on Ukrainian and Russian imports.

  Beasley said that his organization has no choice except to take food from the hungry to feed the starving, and unless more funding pours in immediately, “we risk not even being able to feed the starving.”

  The Ukraine war is teaching international leaders a lesson they should have learned already — long-term agricultural strategy must be built into national security plans. That means starting now to invest in more sustainable farming practices, climate-resilient crops and new growing technologies, as well as agile supply chains that can pivot around disruptions when needed.

  Food security must also become a central focus of international trade agreements.

  Hunger fuels civil unrest and a vicious cycle of disruptions. It adds burdens, distractions and enormous costs to strained governments as they scramble to import food at higher prices. Eventually, it could lead to mass exodus — hungry civilians fleeing their homeland in search of food.

  Robust food systems have conferred political power for millennia. Civilizations from the Mayans of Mesoamerica to the Vikings of Scandinavia rose as their food supplies flourished and fell as they declined. Even today, nations with the least-reliable food supplies tend to have the least-diverse economies and the most conflict-prone governments.

  In 2012, hunger helped foment the Arab Spring after droughts crippled wheat fields in Russia and the US, causing grain prices to spike worldwide. Food riots broke out in dozens of cities worldwide.

  That global food crisis a decade ago forced G8 nations to begin to focus on food security. They pledged significant funding for food relief. The administration of former US president Barack Obama, for its part, set up the Feed the Future program, which deployed the US Agency for International Development and other agencies in targeted countries to help improve access to food.

  These were important efforts, but not enough.

  Today, wealthy and developing nations need to double down on this issue. Wheat prices are at the levels they were in the 2008 food crisis — and climbing.

  “We can only imagine how much more devastating this is going to get,” said Catherine Bertini, a food security expert with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former director of the UN World Food Program. “The risk we’re facing is unprecedented.”

  The Ukraine invasion has three tiers of negative influence on food security: on the people of Ukraine and Russia, who are experiencing supply disruptions; on countries relying heavily on their exports; and on broader populations that are feeling the shock of higher food prices.

  Worldwide today, 283 million people are acutely food insecure and 45 million are on the edge of famine. Famine-stricken countries such as Yemen stand to suffer most from dwindling Ukrainian food exports, but also vulnerable are Egypt, Turkey and Bangladesh, which import billions of US dollars of Ukrainian wheat annually.

  Many other nations already struggling with food supplies depend on Ukrainian exports. For example, Kenya derives 34 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and 70 percent of its population lacks money for food. In Morocco, 31 percent of its wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine, and 56 percent of its population cannot afford a stable food supply. No less than half of the wheat purchased by the UN for food assistance worldwide comes from Ukraine.

  However, no country is insulated from food disruptions, including and especially the US. With all the calls we have been hearing for greater energy independence, few have fretted over the US exporting about US$150 billion annually in food products while it imports nearly as much — about US$145 billion.

  Why is food security not a key topic at major global conferences? It was barely discussed last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, nor was it a priority at the COP 26 climate conference or at the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

  The EU, WTO and other international trade groups must prioritize stable food-trade relationships, especially for the poorest and most food-vulnerable countries.

  Even if Russia’s war against Ukraine is resolved soon and their exports continue to flow, climate impacts on food production and supply chain disruptions could become increasingly severe.

  Hotter, drier and more volatile growing conditions are already hobbling food systems globally, and as much as 30 percent of the world’s productive farm and pastureland might no longer support food production by the end of this century, if trends continue, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released last week said.

  Nations should steer more money to organizations such as the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center that are advancing crucial research on how to grow more resilient crops in regions that are becoming steadily less arable.

  This is not just a problem of the future — countries and communities that most urgently address their food supply challenges are likely the ones best equipped to survive disruptions and thrive economically.

  Amanda Little is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a professor of journalism and science writing at Vanderbilt University.

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