FAO at the Valdai Discussion Club: origins of current food crisis

On 31 March, Oleg Kobiakov, Director of the Moscow Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), participated in a discussion titled “A World on the Edge of Hunger: How Can We Overcome the Current Food Crisis?” at the Valdai Discussion Club.

The discussion focused on the impact of the current food crisis on customers worldwide, anti-crisis measures taken by the international community, as well as the situation in the Russian food market and agricultural sector.  

The event was moderated by Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, who outlined recent developments that have detrimental effect on food security in the global dimension.  

“Exchange prices of food commodities are rising. A reduction in export supplies is highly likely. This will affect the markets, which received supplies from Ukraine and Russia, primarily those in the Middle East and North Africa.” Oleg Barabanov stressed that no less important question already worrying Russian citizens is “how our agricultural sector will adapt to the new economic conditions.” 

In a broader context, food security could also “be severely affected by climate change, with increasing droughts in some countries and soil salinization in coastal zones in others, putting large areas of land out of agricultural use.”

A recent report by the Valdai Discussion Club titled “Climate Change and Food Security: A Recipe for Food Totalitarianism?” examines scenarios on how “certain measures announced at the Glasgow Conference could affect food production, in particular the measures to reduce methane emissions into atmosphere, and we know that livestock is one of the main sources of man-induced emissions of this greenhouse gas,” said Oleg Barabanov.

As the moderator noted, some of the report’s conclusions sound “alarmist”, as it is most probable that “entire countries and regions of the world will become food insecure.” This could lead to a shift to “global food distribution systems with a total denial of individual states sovereignty over food production and marketing, there will be a situation described in the report as ‘global food totalitarianism’.”

Oleg Kobiakov noted that the current food crisis has been exacerbated even earlier by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Over the past two years, the number of the world’s hungry people has risen from 690 to 820 million, meaning that one in every ten inhabitants on the planet faces food insecurity.”

He said that the FAO Food Price Index has reached an all-time high: “The index which our Organization monitors at the request of member countries in five major food groups has been on the rise for three years and is currently higher than at any time since 2011.” 

The FAO representative also touched upon recent developments that have caused an increase in prices, in particular the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. “This conflict is affecting the food market, not only in Russia and Ukraine, but also globally. Russia and Ukraine represent the world's breadbasket, especially regarding grain – this includes the production of wheat and rye and, specifically in Ukraine, maize, sunflower and rapeseed. Over the past month, global wheat prices have risen by 40 percent, sunflower oil prices have grown even more, and many countries have faced issues in enabling the flow of imports and the availability of these essential products in the domestic market.”  

The Director of the FAO Moscow Office highlighted the countries that depend on food imports from Russia and Ukraine: “These are whole regions, the entire Western Asia, all of North Africa, many other countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. More than 50 countries meet a large share of their food commodities needs through imports from Russia and Ukraine.” Many of these countries are among the least developed countries facing food shortages and, of course, they are hit the hardest by the current crisis resulting from the military activities.

Oleg Kobiakov said that the effects of COVID-19 and of the current armed conflict would be long-lasting. “The leaders of the UN ‘food cluster’ – Executive Director of the World Food Programme David Beasley, FAO Director-General QU Dongyu, and President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development Gilbert Houngbo – have been warning about worsening global food crisis for a long time already. In the new environment, the ultimate goal of ending hunger, enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as SDG 2, is unlikely to be achieved. Everything will depend on how soon the situation returns on “peaceful track”, concluded the Director of the FAO Moscow Office.

Anicet Gabriel Kotchofa, Ambassador of the Republic of Benin in the Russian Federation and the CIS countries (2012-2026), Associate Professor at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, pointed out the danger of the sanctions imposed against Russia for African countries. “Sanctions may kill the population of Africa, since it directly depends on supplies from Russia,” the diplomat said. “The cooperation between Russia and Africa is fundamental to ensure food security. It is high time for the world to remember things that are much more important than economy and political games.”

Oleg Sirota, Head of the Union of Russian Cheese Makers, was optimistic on the prospects of the Russian agricultural business. According to him, the Russian agrarian sector often benefits from the aggravation of the situation in the world food markets. Thus, the cultivation of wheat, sunflower, rapeseed and soybeans becomes highly profitable. The agricultural business in Russia is very profit-making and remains one of the locomotives of the economy, he noted. He believes that farmers in Central Russia benefit from global warming, as well, and that sanctions do not represent such a danger for the Russian agrarian sector because it is impossible to exclude from the market the largest supplier of wheat and fertilizers.

Dr Nourhan El-Sheikh, Professor of Political Science at Cairo University, overviewed the situation in the Middle East. She noted that the food crisis has been worsening since the 2010s. In the Middle East, among the Arab states, the three poorest Arab countries – Syria, Yemen and Sudan – have been particularly affected by it, but most of the other countries in the region are also having hard time. At the moment, the situation is further worsened by the “economic procedures” introduced by the United States and their allies against Russia and other countries. According to the expert, these measures harm not so much those countries, against which they are directed, but the entire world that strongly depends on Russian wheat.

Replying to media questions, Oleg Kobiakov highlighted that Ambassador Kotchofa and Dr El-Sheikh had pointed out “the global and multifactorial character of the food issue. The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is not the only factor, it is the trigger for the entire chain of risks, which includes both sanctions that have slowed down the supply chains and the crises that had appeared earlier.”

“Diseases were conventionally the main causes of hunger in the world: in the Middle Ages, plague, smallpox, and cholera pandemics mowed down millions of people. Other reasons were poor harvests, and in the context of an underdeveloped international trade, hunger engulfed entire regions. Finally, in the third place of the rating of reasons, even at that time, were armed conflicts, but bows and arrows, cannons and mortars could not cause world hunger.”

In the twentieth century, both internal and external wars became the main cause of hunger. Among threats and challenges to food security, climate change came second, and its negative consequences – “draughts, floods, typhoons, pest outbreaks – are leading to crop and livestock losses, stock destruction and bankruptcy of producers. Finally, “economic shocks”, provoked by the first two groups of factors, are an important cause of food crisis.”

Today, the role of international organizations in overcoming their consequences is greater than ever before. So, at the moment, FAO is conducting a large-scale humanitarian operation in Ukraine worth USD 50 million, in the framework of which emergency assistance is being provided to 100 000 rural households counting 240 000 villagers in the form of money, seeds, fertilizers, so that they could “sow crops” and thus support their families.

Basically, Ukraine and Russia have enough grain storage to both feed their population and saturate word markets. Today, however, supply chains are being disrupted: due to threats to shipping in conflict zones, refusal of charterers to transport Russian grain and fertilizers, and due to sanctions imposed on Russia. “The current crisis has only worsened the disruption of food chains, which had just started recovering after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fastest way to solve it consists in implementing a ceasefire in Ukraine, removing trade restrictions by the world food market stakeholders, maintaining transparency and predictability in trade, and taking coordinated actions for the benefit of the entire world population”, the Head of the FAO Moscow Office noted.

You can watch the recording here.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Valdai Discussion Club was founded in 2004. Throughout its history, it has become an internationally recognized expert platform. Today, the Club specifically focuses on world political and economic processes research. Over the past years, more than 1 000 representatives of the global scientific community from over 74 countries have attended it. During the annual meetings, the participants traditionally meet with the President of the Russian Federation and with other country’s senior officials.

The FAO Moscow Office has been fruitfully cooperating with the Club – last time, Oleg Kobiakov was invited in August 2021 to attend the panel discussion “One World – One Health: Animals and the COVID-19 Pandemic.”