The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says the Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices for a basket of goods, averaged 159.3 points last month, up 12.6% from February. As it stands, the February index was the highest level since its inception in 1990. The FAO said the war in Ukraine was largely responsible for the 17.1% rise in grain prices, including wheat and others such as oats, barley and corn. Together, Russia and Ukraine account for about 30% and 20% of world wheat and corn exports, respectively. While predictable, given the sharp rise in February, “this is really remarkable,” said Josef Schmidhuber, deputy director of FAO’s purchasing and trade division. “Clearly, these very high food prices require urgent action.” The biggest price increases were for vegetable oils: this price index increased by 23.2%, due to the higher prices for sunflower oil used for cooking. Ukraine is the leading exporter of sunflower oil in the world and Russia is No. 2. “There is, of course, a huge supply disruption and this massive supply disruption from the Black Sea region has fueled vegetable oil prices,” Schmidhuber told reporters in Geneva. He said he could not estimate how much the war was to blame for record food prices, noting that bad weather in the United States and China was also responsible for crop concerns. But he said “logistics” played a big role. “Essentially, there are no exports through the Black Sea and exports through the Baltic are practically complete,” he said. Rising food prices and disruptions in supplies from Russia and Ukraine have threatened food shortages in countries in the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia where many people were already short of food. These nations rely on affordable supplies of wheat and other grains from the Black Sea region to feed millions of people who survive on subsidized bread and noodle bazaars, and now face the possibility of further political instability. Other large grain producers such as the United States, Canada, France, Australia and Argentina are being closely monitored to see if they can quickly increase production to fill the gaps, but farmers are facing problems such as climbing fuel and fertilizer costs. aggravated by the war. drought and supply chain disturbances. In the Sahel region of Central and West Africa, war disruptions have added to an already precarious food situation caused by COVID-19, conflict, bad weather and other structural problems, said Sib Ollo, Senior Researcher for the World West and Central Africa Food Program in Dakar, Senegal. “There is a sharp deterioration in food and nutrition security in the region,” he told reporters, adding that 6 million children are malnourished and nearly 16 million people in urban areas are at risk of food insecurity. Farmers, he said, were particularly concerned that they would not have access to fertilizers produced in the Black Sea region. Russia is a leading world exporter. “The cost of fertilizers has risen by almost 30% in many parts of this region due to the supply disruption we are seeing being caused by a crisis in Ukraine,” he said. The World Food Program has requested $ 777 million to meet the needs of 22 million people in the Sahel and Nigeria over a six-month period, he said. To address the needs of food-importing countries, the FAO has developed a proposal for a mechanism to reduce import costs for the poorest countries, Schmidhuber said. The proposal calls on eligible countries to commit to additional investment in their own agricultural productivity to receive import credit to mitigate the blow.
