Food is crucial to national security

By Amanda Little

While Putin’s war in Ukraine shakes the energy market and pushes up fertilizer prices, a bigger problem now is rising wheat prices. Russia is leading the world into a deepening food security crisis, worsening shortages already caused by the pandemic and climate change.

More than 70% of Ukraine is agricultural land that produces a large part of the world’s wheat, as well as its corn, barley, rye, sunflower oil, and potatoes. Ukraine’s crop exports to the European Union, China, India, and North Africa and the Middle East plummet as Russian forces paralyze Ukrainian ports. They could soon cease altogether.

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

There is already pressure on food security organizations to deal with the spread of hunger. Greater scarcity”it will be hell in lifeDavid Beasley, director of the United Nations World Food Program, predicted last week.

The threat is greatest in countries already on the brink of famine and those heavily dependent on Ukrainian and Russian imports. Beasley said that organizing him “will have no choice but to take food from the hungry to feed others who are hungrier” and, unless more funds arrive immediately, “we run the risk of not being able to feed those who need it most”.

The war in Ukraine is teaching international leaders a lesson they should have learned by now: Long-term agricultural strategy must be integrated into national security plans. That means starting now to invest in more sustainable farming practices, climate-resilient crops and new farming technologies, as well as agile supply chains that can react to disruptions when needed. Food security must also become a central focus of international trade agreements.

Hunger fuels civil unrest and a vicious cycle of disruption. It adds enormous burdens, distractions and costs to governments already under pressure as they import food at higher prices. Eventually it can lead to a mass exodus of civilians fleeing their homeland in search of food.

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

In 2012, famine helped fuel the Arab Spring after droughts crippled wheat fields in Russia and the United States, causing grain prices to soar around the world. Food riots broke out in dozens of cities around the world.

That global food crisis a decade ago forced the G8 nations to start focusing on food security. They promised significant funding for food aid. The Obama Administration, for its part, established Feed the Future, a program deployed by USAID and other agencies in select countries to help improve access to food. They were important efforts, but not enough.

Today, both rich and developing nations need to intensify efforts on this issue. Wheat prices are already at the levels they registered in the food crisis of 2008, and continue to rise. “We can only imagine how much worse this devastating situation will get.” said Catherine Bertini, a food security expert at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former director of the UN World Food Program. “The risk we face is unprecedented.”.

The invasion of Ukraine has three levels of negative influence on food security. First, in the Ukrainians and Russians facing supply disruptions. Second, in countries that depend heavily on their exports; and third, in broader populations already feeling the impact of higher food prices.

Currently, around the world, 283 million people are acutely food insecure and 45 million are on the brink of famine. Famine-stricken countries like Yemen bear the brunt of Ukraine’s declining food exports, but so are Egypt, Turkey and Bangladesh, which import billions of dollars worth of Ukrainian wheat annually.

Many other nations already struggling with food supplies depend on Ukrainian exports. Let’s talk about Kenya, for example: 34% of its wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine, and 70% of its population does not have money for food. Or Morocco: 31% of its wheat comes from Russia and the Ukraine, and 56% of its population cannot afford a stable food supply. About half of the wheat purchased by the United Nations for food assistance worldwide comes from Ukraine.

But no country is protected from future food disruptions, including the United States. Despite all the calls we’ve been hearing about greater energy independence, few have worried about the fact that while the United States exports about $150 billion a year in food products, it imports almost the same amount: about $145 billion.

Why isn’t food safety a key topic at major world conferences? It was barely discussed last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, nor was it a priority at the COP26 climate conference or the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The European Union, the World Trade Organization and other international trade groups must prioritize stable food trading relationships, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable countries in that regard.

Even if Russia’s war against Ukraine is resolved soon and its exports continue to flow, the environmental impacts on food production and supply chain disruptions will become increasingly severe. According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released last week, hotter, drier and more volatile growing conditions are already hampering food systems globally, and up to 30% of the world’s currently productive farms and rangelands they will no longer support food production by the end of this century, if current trends continue.

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

However, this is not just a problem of the future: the countries and communities that most urgently address their food supply challenges will be the best equipped to survive disruptions and prosper economically now.