Ukraine’s role as the “breadbasket of the world,” central to the dissemination of wheat, barley, corn, soybeans, sunflower seeds, and more, is in jeopardy as a result of Russia’s invasion, reports ABC News.
Soon after the war broke out, prices for grains spiked by roughly 50 to 60 percent, prompting experts on food systems to warn about the global repercussions, particularly in vulnerable countries like in areas of East Africa and Yemen.
By the end of the summer, the prices generally stabilized thanks to political treaties and good crop production in the U.S., Canada, and E.U. But the stabilization didn’t rectify all Ukrainian exports: sunflower oil, for example, continues to tout heightened sticker prices. According to Anna Voloshyna, a Ukrainian chef, the bottles she does find are now imported from Mexico rather than Ukraine.
The war also continues to exacerbate energy and fertilizer prices, which Russia primarily supplies. This has also contributed to record food price inflation across the world. The strong U.S. dollar has shielded Americans from the brunt of the price increases, said Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, but the lack of crops in the reserve could soon change that.
Cleanup for the war will also continue to affect Ukrainian farmland, which used to make up 70 percent of the country’s land. This will prove a hurdle for Ukraine to return to pre-war production.
"It will take us 10 years to remove all the dangerous bombs and mines and the stuff that our friendly neighbor left us," Voloshyna, whose family has a farm in southern Ukraine, said. "Most of those mines are in the fields, so people cannot go and harvest crops. And they cannot plant new crops."
In countries where the government has absorbed the food-related price increases from the war, debilitating debt can damage their economies, warns The World Bank. Full Story
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