Ukraine and Russia are major players in world food production, accounting for 53% of world trade in sunflower oil and seeds and 27% in wheat, according to the United Nations. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has jeopardized these exports, causing particular concern in developing countries – about 25 African countries import more than a third of their grain from Ukraine and Russia, for example. Image: Bread in Lebanon – a country based on wheat for food security Speaking on Sky’s Ian King Live program, Nic Hailey, executive director of the charity International Alert, said: “Even before Ukraine, we were talking about an unprecedented level of humanitarian need – one in 95 was displaced by conflict or emergency. “Climate change has led to drought – East Africa, for example, has had three failed rainy seasons, there are more than seven million people in Somalia in urgent need of food aid, even before Ukraine. “And then with Ukraine, the price of wheat, the price of cooking oil, the price of transporting these things has really skyrocketed and that has made the situation a lot worse.” Mr. Hailey, who previously worked for the Bureau of Foreign and Commonwealth Development, said that Egypt – the largest importer of Russian and Ukrainian wheat in the world. Lebanon – which relies on it for 80% of its food security. and Tunisia, where bread and basic necessities are already in short supply, is among the most vulnerable. Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player March 1:46: Sergiy Tsivkach, CEO of UkraineInvest, explains why Russia’s war threatens a global food crisis “Sudan is another example – we have seen bread price demonstrations in the past leading to serious political violence in Sudan. “These are the basic things that people rely on, so we have to look at these risks of political instability, as well as these effects on food insecurity and the cost of living.” Image: A combine harvester loads a truck with wheat in a field near the village of Hrebeni in the Kiev region, Ukraine. Photo file Mr Hailey said that because the government had kept its promise to spend just 0.5% of GDP on international aid, the increase in aid needed by Ukraine was less significant for other countries, such as Yemen, where tens of millions people urgently need food. He said: “If you look at what the British government is doing, they have really strengthened Ukraine – they have mobilized a huge amount of aid money, but that aid money comes with labor costs elsewhere. “Because the government’s 0.5% ceiling on aid spending means it is re-setting priorities, they are effectively deducting money from some of these other crises to work in Ukraine.” He added: “This is not what the British public did. “The British public has responded unprecedentedly to this crisis by donating more than 200 200 million to Ukraine’s emergency call. “So what we are asking is for the British government and other governments to respond in the same way. “This is an unprecedented global crisis and governments really need to accelerate.” Subscribe to Ukraine War Calendars on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Spreaker Mr Haley also singled out some of Ukraine ‘s former Soviet states and neighboring Moldova as at risk of conflict. The economies of several Central Asian countries – commonly referred to as the “Stans” – are based on migrant workers going to Russia and sending their profits home. But the Russian economy had already been hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and with sanctions exacerbating the damage, many of those workers were returning home “unemployed and hungry.” “This is a serious blow – it is also a serious threat to stability in some of these countries,” he said. Moldova, the poorest of the European countries hosting Ukrainian refugees, is also at risk, Haley said, adding that it has a conflict within its borders. If the Ukrainian city of Odessa – just above the border with Moldova – was flooded and people fled, it could “put real pressure on Moldova”.
