The U.S./U.K./Global NATO bloc has weaponized agriculture by demanding the world blame the food shortage—in the works even before the 2020 pandemic, and the Ukraine conflict, on Russia. Certainly, the short-term impact of the loss of the full flow of food and fertilizer exports from Ukraine and partly from Russia is big. But the same crowd that blames Russia for anything and everything, has done nothing over the past three months, to collaborate on increasing production in the several major food belts worldwide where short-term gains could be made.
Instead, there is a unison chorus from Washington, London, Brussels, the UN bureaucracy, the IMF, World Bank etc., besides blaming Russia, to castigate any nation that temporarily blocks food and farm inputs exports, out of concern for their domestic supplies.
Given that there is no collaboration for revving up agriculture production to fill the “Ukraine” gap, nor to end the hunger already spreading before 2020, nations have no recourse but to try to protect their home supplies. With no grounds for trust in the current insane geopolitical environment, nations perceive no other recourse. One ugly footnote, however, is that some firms in Brazil see bigger profits in cane for ethanol, than for food, because of the energy hyperinflation.
The U.S. and the EU have gone berserk over setting up front groups and rhetoric over how to meet food security, while continuing their hunger- and death-causing armed conflict and lack of production. Typical of their stance is point 3 from the 7 points released May 18 by the United States as Chair of the Global Food Security Ministerial Meeting held at the United Nations, attended by some 25 special guest nations, not Russia or China:
“All UN Member States [are] to keep their food and agricultural markets open and to avoid unjustified restrictive measures, such as export bans on food or fertilizer….”
Just a partial list of national suspensions of food exports under the current emergency situation shows the global scope of the worldwide production crisis. The list below gives the country, food exports banned, end date of the ban. Data are from May. (These are from the International Food Policy Research Institute; media and government sources, and are subject to change.)
Argentina: soybean oil and meal; Dec. 31, 2023
Algeria: pasta, wheat derivatives, vegetable oil, sugar; Dec. 31, 2022
Egypt: vegetable oil, maize/corn, wheat, flour, oils, lentils, past beans; June 12, 2022
India: wheat; Dec. 31, 2022
Indonesia: palm oil, palm kernel oil; Dec. 31, 2022
