Reflecting on One Year of War: The Food Crisis That Started in Ukrainian Ports is Now a Global Policy Challenge​

By Dr. Ian Ralby

As the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches, the international community still has not managed to prevent the weaponization of food supply chains. That issue was urgent a year ago, and while the United Nations Black Sea Grain Initiative continues to try to get 2021 grain out of Ukrainian ports, the nature of the problem has become far bigger than any fleet of bulk carriers could manage. That is because we are transitioning from a food price crisis to a wide-spread food availability crisis. Last February, the world’s grain supply faced a logistical challenge with both security and political implications. This February, the world’s wider food supply faces a far more intractable set of problems that are making it almost impossible for the agricultural sector to meet the global demand for food.

This new hunger problem involves at least five complications: 1. Ongoing efforts to get the 2021 grain out of Ukraine; 2. The need to move the limited 2022 grain out of Ukraine; 3. The wider impact of Russia’s invasion on the global agricultural sector, both through material requirements like fertilizer and economic challenges; 4. A cross-cutting issue of political collusion that has already weaponized food for diplomatic, political and even security advantages; and 5. An entrenched failure of policy to prioritize both food security and food sovereignty.

Even before the 24^th of February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine – a country that produces a substantial amount of the world’s export markets in wheat, corn and sunflower seeds – analysts were raising alarms about looming food security concerns. Despite substantial exposure regarding the urgency of reestablishing the movement of grain, it took until 22 July 2022 for the UN to reach a deal with Russia, Turkey and Ukraine to export the siloed gain from Ukrainian ports. While roughly 20 million tons were already in storage at the start of the war, the Black Sea Grain Initiative overseen by the UN got moving at the rate of 1.5 million tons per month, managed to peak at 4 million tons per month in September and October, and is now down to its lowest levels since the start of the Initiative. With 2022 harvests – albeit reduced on account of the war – waiting for available silo space, this pace of movement cannot keep up with demands.

In a somewhat unsurprising twist, the most productive period of the Grain Initiative was during a few days in late October and early November when Russia unilaterally backed out of it. Ukraine, however, cannot simultaneously sustain a major war effort, large-scale agricultural production, and a Grain Initiative that is constantly behind the harvest cycles. Those delays have knock-on effects on the refined products – like wheat flour and pasta – that rely on Ukrainian grain, which in turn affect a whole range of already vulnerable and fragile states. The sad truth is, however, that no matter how fast the Grain Initiative moves, it cannot make up for other factors which are almost certain to make 2023 a year of considerable hunger.

Despite having caused this global food crisis, and despite slow walking grain inspections, Russia is vocally critical of the Grain Initiative on the grounds that it does not get food supplies to the countries that need them the most. Notwithstanding the potential accuracy of that criticism, several further factors render that position unequivocally hypocritical. In October, the Associated Press / Frontline produced a remarkable investigative piece indicating that Russia had smuggled out $530 million worth of Ukrainian grain, thereby circumventing the Grain Initiative. At the same time, as spearheading the criminal market in grain, Russia, one of the top five producers of fertilizer in the world, has found countless reasons why it cannot export fertilizer to countries that desperately need it to ensure agricultural production. The UN has even had to work establish a separate fertilizer deal with Russia. There is no way to surge production to avert an agricultural crisis, so even the United States, which has been a leader in sanctioning Russia, has encouraged a deal.

While the United Nations works to negotiate the means of maintaining the pre-invasion globalized system of food supplies, farmers around the world are feeling the crisis in several ways. First, inflation has hit them, the way it has hit everyone, and thin margins make surviving difficult. While diesel prices and fuel availability are a major point of discussion, it is the full spectrum of price spikes that are crippling farmers. Second, even those who can afford the inflated price on fertilizer, feed, and seeds, farmers are finding that in many cases those critical supplies simply are not available. Third, intense climate swings and climactic events are further hampering agricultural production in a number of places. And finally, panic purchasing of both supplies and animals by non-farmers is actually interfering with the ability to stabilize food production.

On the financial front, agricultural policies come to the fore as a major problem. While all segments of society should be productive in some way, there is, as Abraham Maslow suggested, a fundamental hierarchy of human needs for survival. Food is foundational. And while operating capital may be readily available for certain segments of society, a failure of prioritization have left farmers with limited recourse to withstand global inflation, much less the supply chain crisis they now face. Without policy to insulate farmers from the economic challenges, the supply chain crisis, actually gets worse.

In the United States, for example, headlines are reflecting what most people are experiencing: a major spike in the price of food goods, including eggs. In another failure of policy to ensure agricultural production, non-farmers, who know nothing of food production, have been buying chickens, as well as other animals, to ensure their own demand for eggs and meat can be met. As a result, actual farmers are struggling to even find chickens for sale, and when they can, they have become even more expensive than inflation would dictate. This only sets up a bigger food crisis in the year ahead, as the agricultural sector – responsible for feeding the world – cannot actually produce food.

While “food security” refers to the ability of people to access and afford safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs, “food sovereignty” is “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.” The very nature of this concept begs the question: how many countries have considered and implemented policies to ensure that their food producers actually have control over their own food supply, production and distribution systems? Approaching the question from an individual angle: how many people have become so alienated from the source of their food that they do not consider the origin of what they eat or what was involved in getting it to their table? While naturally there is a demand for global foods, particularly some specialties that are only grown or made in certain places, the current food crisis reveals just how susceptible agricultural supply chains, as well as food supply chains are to strategic shock. And governments everywhere need to consider the extent to which they need agricultural policies that, at a minimum, provide for national subsistence.

The vulnerability of many states – both fragile and more robust ones – that are already being harmed by the food-related fallout of Russia’s invasion has also become a focal point of collusive efforts to shift the world’s political center of gravity. China effectively provided Russia with the economic guarantee it needed to be able to invade Ukraine, knowing it would survive any subsequent sanctions. Now, both states are using diplomatic efforts involving energy and food to try to get closer to certain countries and strong arm others. Russian fertilizer is critical to agricultural production in India, the world’s most populous country. Ukrainian grain made up nearly 50% of the grain supply in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, and Indonesia President Joko Widodo has backed off an anti-China stance and begun making moves to strengthen relations with Beijing. Just as farmers have been left to fend for themselves in this food crisis, many states may be compelled, for the interests of their people, to turn to Russia and China as “providers.”

The implications of this food crisis cut to the very foundation of human existence, and therefore, cannot be overstated. The logistics of moving grain out of Ukraine are so much more easily remedied than the catastrophic impact of farmers around the world not being able to produce food. As we cross into the second year of the Russian invasion, food security and food sovereignty are issues that are going to affect the entire world’s population in one way or another. The price spikes were painful in 2022, but the hunger pangs will be even worse in 2023. Creative, comprehensive and corrective policies are urgently needed to prioritize and protect food supplies and the farmers that produce them. On the current trajectory, we may soon become nostalgic for the “hunger blockade” as we at least had enough food supplies to be blocked from being shipped across the globe.

Dr. Ian Ralby is CEO of the consultancy I.R. Consilium, President of the charitable nonprofit Auxilium Worldwide and a Fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy. He is a recognized expert in maritime law and security, and works with states on building the legal and operational capacity to combat a wide spectrum of threats including the emerging and evolving tactics of unlawfare.

The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.