Cape Town The military rulers in Sudan must have sensed a certain uneasiness when they had to almost double the price of bread last year because of high inflation. When the previous regime tried something similar three years earlier, there had been mass protests. In the end, the turmoil cost Sudan’s longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir his power.
Bread and corn have always been the main source of calories for millions of people in Africa and Arabia – and are therefore extremely politically sensitive. The war in Ukraine has further aggravated the situation in Sudan and other fragile African states. So far, Sudan has received around a third of its grain from Russia, and Ukraine is also an important trading partner for agricultural products. But now these deliveries are in question, while world market prices are rising drastically.
Many African countries have refused to condemn Russia’s war of aggression because they fear for their food imports and arms supplies. However, they will feel the effects of the war very soon.
Eleven international aid organizations – including Oxfam, Save the Children and World Vision – recently warned of the worst food crisis in West Africa in a decade. One is concerned that the war in Ukraine will aggravate the already catastrophic situation.
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It’s about failing food deliveries, but also about a lack of support. Many donor countries have indicated that they could cut funding for Africa in order to use the money for the Ukraine crisis. In West Africa alone, almost 40 million people could soon go hungry.
Billions for wheat imports
In 2020, Africa imported around $4 billion worth of agricultural products from Russia, almost 90 percent of which was imported wheat. In the same year, Ukraine received nearly $3 billion in agricultural produce from Ukraine, 80 percent of which was wheat and corn. However, the continent would suffer even more from a sharp rise in the price of corn, the actual staple food in the south of the Sahara, than from a high wheat price.
Aid organizations such as SOS Children’s Villages are warning of new famines as a result of the Ukraine war.
(Photo: obs)
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, hardly any freighters from the Black Sea region have docked in the East African ports of Mombasa, Dar es Salaam or Durban. Is Africa running out of wheat and corn? In the current situation, it could prove to be an advantage that south of the Sahara there are mainly small farmers who produce exclusively for their own use. They are less dependent on food imports.
Nevertheless, they are also likely to suffer from the increased costs for fertilizer and transport. The current problem is not empty shelves in supermarkets, but drastically rising prices. And they can destabilize entire governments. Scientists have calculated that even a 10 percent rise in food prices increases the likelihood of political unrest in Africa by almost 40 percent.
Observers are reminded of the current situation of the global food crisis 15 years ago. At that time there had been unrest, especially in West Africa. In the desert state of Burkina Faso, angry people protested against the regime, and in Mali the price of bread rose by 30 percent – an enormous increase for families, who spend around half their income on food.
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Even then, the mix of rising fuel and bread prices proved to be explosive, and the parallels to the current situation are obvious: Only this time, not only wheat and maize but also millet and sorghum, to which many Africans have been able to fall back, have changed compared to the Up to 100 percent more expensive in the previous year.
Next to Kenya, Nigeria is likely to be the first to be affected, where many poor families in urban areas consume instant noodles. Elsewhere, states have already responded specifically to the effects of the war. In Ivory Coast, the government introduced a price cap for certain products such as palm oil, sugar, milk and rice for three months. At the same time, the export of foodstuffs such as plantains or the potato-like tuber manioc must be approved.
Many smallholders and farmers from Somalia to South Africa are also concerned about the shortage and increasing price of artificial fertilizers. After all, Ukraine and Russia are also important suppliers in this area. Even in South Africa, where the best wheat harvest in twenty years was harvested last year, large farmers are worried about the next harvest season.
Russia and Ukraine are important wheat exporters. African countries depend on it.
(Photo: dpa)
Now debates are picking up steam about how the continent could become more food self-sufficient. This discussion is important for Africa because its agriculture, 60 years after the independence of the first states, is often based on pre-industrial production methods with plow and scythe. 35 of the 48 countries in the south of the Sahara are still food importers, although there are still large areas of arable land lying fallow.
Since the 1970s, the continent’s share of global agricultural exports has halved to less than four percent. Despite its high level of debt, Africa currently has to import more than $50 billion worth of food a year – an amount that is likely to more than double within the next five years due to rapid population growth and current price shocks. In this way, Africa is wasting valuable foreign exchange that could be far more usefully invested in capital goods such as tractors or irrigation systems. Only this would pave the way to a certain food self-sufficiency.
Artificial irrigation systems are the exception
Because of the often hot climate, high-quality wheat can only be grown in a few regions of Africa, for example. The grain there would also have to be artificially irrigated, which is the exception rather than the rule in Africa. And even if enough was harvested, in the end there were no warehouses and silos for storage – or sensible roads for transport. The large quantities that have been imported into Africa from Russia and the Ukraine can therefore hardly be replaced in the short term.
For years, Africa’s autocrats have intensified their relations with Russia and China. It is not always about agricultural goods, as the many military agreements and sharply increased arms deliveries show. For Africa’s despots, the arms trade with Russia is simply less complicated than with the United States: while Washington insists on respecting human rights, Putin doesn’t care.
In fact, he often urges Africa’s potentates to show harshness. Now the same autocrats are faced with deep red budgets – and angry citizens – because of Putin’s war.
More: IfW analysis: Ukraine war threatens Africa’s food security