Food crisis looms: Sanctions against Russia threaten global food security

05/27/2022 / By Mary Villareal

Russia’s war with Ukraine could potentially lead to millions of people going hungry as soaring food prices and unrests set off away from the conflict zone.

Partly, or perhaps chiefly, to blame are the Democrat policies that short-changed the U.S. and left Americans grappling with a cost-of-living crisis with prices rising significantly faster than wages. Sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its western allies on Russia have threatened food security.

Meanwhile, over 20 million tons of grains are stuck in silos at Ukrainian ports as Russian blockades prevent ships from setting sail with wheat, corn and other exports. The Russian forces have also been accused of stealing the grains and deliberately destroying storage warehouses in Ukraine.

The grains in these silos are at risk of rotting before they can reach the Middle East and Africa, which are trying to stave off a food crisis. Russia and Ukraine account for over a quarter of global wheat supplies and export to countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen and Somalia. (Related: Russia-Ukraine war will further worsen global food shortage as poor nations face starvation, unrest.)

David Ortega, a food economist and associate professor at Michigan State University, noted that these are among the most vulnerable populations in the world, and the consequences will be very dire for them.

The U.S. and its allies are holding crisis talks at the United Nations (UN), appealing to Russia to open land, rail or sea corridors to allow Ukraine’s exports to reach their destinations.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly already said Canada was prepared to send cargo ships and experts, including grain inspectors to different ports along the Black Sea to help Ukraine get its wheat out.

The UN and other international agencies have said tens of millions of people in developing countries will suffer from malnourishment, hunger and famine as prices for grain, oil and other foods soar.

“There is enough food for everyone in the world. The issue is distribution, and it is deeply linked to the war in Ukraine,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Rising food prices could spark civil unrest

There are also others who fear that rising food prices, which have been a problem throughout the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the severe droughts that followed, could spark civil unrest.

David Beasley, head of the UN’s World Food Program, said that if people can’t feed their children and their families, then the politics unsettles and there could be potential for riots, famine, destabilization and mass migration by necessity.

Analysts are already seeing the similarities between the current situation and the soaring food prices in 2007 and 2008 that led to “food riots” around the world.

Caitlin Welsh, the director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., noted that the effects of COVID-19 led to food insecurity and was reaching perhaps the highest levels this century.

She also noted that this is “a crisis on top of a crisis,” which is now completely avoidable, but will hang based on the decisions of one leader. (Related: Food crisis incoming: War in Ukraine threatening global food supplies, half a billion people at risk of hunger.)

Welsh further noted that while food prices can spark unrest, longer-term discontent over governance also plays a significant role. Food security experts say the growing food crisis needs to have a coordinated international response. India, which is the world’s second-largest wheat producer after China, already announced that it will be banning wheat exports due to heatwaves stunting its harvest.

“The more overreaction there is and the more uncoordinated reaction there is [to Ukraine’s grain situation], the higher the price spike is likely to be,” said Sophia Murphy, a Canadian food policy expert and executive director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minnesota.

“Russia can make it more or less easy to access the ports [but] Russia is really not interested in stabilizing world food prices, and it clearly has agency here,” she added. “I’m not sure that the U.S. and Canada and even the UN have much influence over what Putin will decide to do.”

Follow FoodRationing.news for more information about the distribution of goods and soaring food prices.

Watch the video below to know more about the soaring wheat prices after India decided to restrict exports.

This video is from the Chinese taking down EVIL CCP channel on Brighteon.com.