Berlin, Cape Town, Ankara, Dusseldorf The halt to Russia’s wheat exports is exacerbating food production problems in many parts of the world. While Europe can largely supply itself with grain, there is a risk of further bottlenecks in countries such as Egypt and Africa. UN Secretary-General António Guterres is already warning of a “hurricane of hunger”.
With a market share of 17 percent, Russia is one of the largest grain exporters in the world. The government has now imposed a temporary export ban on wheat, barley and rye. It should initially last until June 30th. Moscow wants to use this to secure domestic demand and prevent stronger price increases. Because this could jeopardize the support that the government still has in large parts of the population in the Ukraine war.
But Russia is also aware of the international pressure that the country is creating with the export ban. The only exceptions are said to be for the Russian-dominated Eurasian Economic Union, which includes countries like Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia.
In other countries, which are heavily dependent on wheat imports from Russia, the supply situation is likely to worsen. Together with Ukraine, Russian farms account for a good third of the wheat produced worldwide. The largest importers are North and Central African countries as well as Indonesia and China.
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According to the UN, 45 African countries and many of the world’s poorest countries import much or most of the grain from the two countries. “We must do everything we can to avert a hurricane of hunger and a collapse of the global food system,” said UN Secretary-General Guterres.
Dependent on Russian wheat
The United Nations fears that the war in Ukraine could cause food and animal feed prices to rise drastically around the world. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicted an increase of eight to 20 percent. That would have fatal consequences for the major wheat importing countries.
Agricultural economists like Matin Qaim from the University of Bonn fear that the number of starving people worldwide could increase by 100 million if exports from Russia were interrupted. Because even before the Ukraine war, the supply situation in many poor countries was extremely tight.
The UN warns of a further worsening of the hunger crisis in civil war Yemen. According to the FAO, things could get worse there, especially in the second half of the year. 19 million people in Yemen alone are at risk of no longer being able to meet their minimum food needs.
The hunger crisis in Yemen has long been primarily driven by the ongoing conflict between the Houthi rebels and the government. Now the consequences of the Ukraine war are added. Yemen is almost exclusively dependent on imports, most of which come from Ukraine and Russia.
This also applies to several African countries, where food prices have already risen massively in recent weeks. Unrest like in 2008 is feared.
At that time, the high price of oil and the massive increase in food prices in countries such as Cameroon, Mozambique and Senegal led to violent protests. Higher wheat prices are likely to hit Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya particularly hard this time. Around a third of local grain consumption would be affected.
The export ban imposed by Moscow will also have serious consequences for Egypt and Lebanon, which are heavily dependent on wheat deliveries from Russia and Ukraine. Egypt obtains 80 percent of the roughly 13 million tons of grain it needs annually from the two countries; the relation in Lebanon is similar. The Egyptian government has been looking intensively for days for alternative deliveries. The Ministry of Commerce in Cairo is in contact with suppliers from the USA, Kazakhstan and Romania. In Lebanon, wheat consumption is already rationed, the grain may only be used for breadmaking.
India has already signaled to the Lebanese government that it wants to supply wheat. Agricultural experts now also expect that the EU will have to take over a large part of the falling Russian export demand. France, Romania and Germany are the largest grain exporters among EU countries.
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Indonesia will also look around for new sources of supply, because the populous Asian country has so far been purchasing large quantities of wheat from Russia. It is unclear whether and how Australia can support the country from where it imported a lot in previous years.
The situation and the further role of China are also unclear. The country is also one of the major importers of Russian grain. It is unclear whether China will be permanently affected by the export ban decided by Moscow.
Rather, both countries could move closer together. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Viktoria Abramchenko said on Tuesday that it would realign its agricultural market and “expand the network with friendly countries in order to build mutually profitable trade”.
According to the Ankara Ministry of Agriculture, Turkey gets 70 percent of its total wheat imports from Russia, making it Russia’s largest customer, although some of this is re-exported in the form of processed products such as bread. The same goes for buying sunflower oil. Another 15 percent of Turkey’s wheat imports come from Ukraine.
protests in Turkey
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Head of State Recep Tayyip Erdogan has committed himself to staying in touch with both sides. This not only means that the Turkish government has not yet issued sanctions against Russia. Nobody in Ankara is currently talking about an alternative to Russian wheat either.
The effects of the delivery failures and price increases are immense. Even before the Ukraine war, inflation in Turkey was 53 percent, and the currency continues to depreciate. A food shortage would exacerbate the situation.
There are already citizen protests against the high prices, especially on social media. The opposition criticizes the government for relying too much on Russia to import wheat.
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