How War Exposed The Flaws Of A Globalised Food Production System!

The Russia-Ukraine war has razed the global agriculture system that was once sold as the magic formula to provide food to all. It led to concentration of food production in a handful of countries, making others net importers, and has now fueled a historic rise in prices. It is time to re-invent sustainable food production

- Richard Mahapatra, Latha Jishnu And Shagun

RUSSIA'S UKRAINE invasion drags on. Most of the world has taken sides on who the aggressor and the victim is. But there is one front where the world seems united as a victim-the globalised agriculture system, which has been severely hit.

The food market is intricately interconnected. One of every five calories people eat has crossed at least one international border, writes Maximo Torero Cullen, chief economist of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in a blog on the FAO website. The food market is also extremely fragile, with just six food baskets (see 'The great grain divide', p27) supplying the major chunk of the world's staple food. It is also highly unequal in terms of production and supply the poor countries are net importers and the high income countries net exporters, irrespective of their food production potential. Worse, the advanced economies spend just 17 per cent of their earning on food while Sub-Saharan Africa forks out 40 per cent on the same, as per FAO data. As a result, even a slight disturbance in the system leads to a major food crisis in the poor countries, as is happening now.

The Black Sea region, which includes Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, is one of the world's six food baskets. Russia is the world's largest wheat exporter while Ukraine is sixth on the list. Together, the two warring countries produce 12 per cent of all food calories traded globally; control 29 per cent of global wheat exports, 19 per cent of maize exports, and 78 per cent of sunflower oil exports. Russia is also the world's top exporter of nitrogen fertilisers, the second leading supplier of potassium fertilisers and the third largest exporter of phosphorus fertilisers.