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Russia-Ukraine conflict: spiking prices and the threat to global food security

Posted on 30 March 2022

New article by Professor Tony Heron and Paulina Flores Martinez

Russia-Ukraine conflict represened by a painted wall in yellow, blue, white and red

Professor Tony Heron and PhD candidate Paulina Flores Martinez have a new article published on Food matters Live.

The article "Russia-Ukraine conflict: spiking prices and the threat to global food security"  explores the implications of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict on global food security. Tony and Paulina focused on exploring what these two countries produce and why they are relevant on a global scale, underscoring the role of Russia as a global leader in the fertilisers market, and of Ukraine as one of Europe's breadbaskets. Tony and Paulina go on to point out high import dependencies from a handful of countries for both Russian fertilisers and Ukrainian vegetable oils and staples.

Regarding WTO sanctions they briefly touched upon potential effects and their limitations. Additionally, they aim to show how the conflict is occurring amidst already complex and challenging times in terms of food security. To support the latter Tony and Paulina refer to the latest data on the FAO Food Price Index and UN estimations around food insecurity. Unfortunately, rising living costs in Europe and the UK lead them to think that pricing pressures for consumers will increase considerably in the coming months and food security will be severely compromised. In their opinion, this 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict shares some parallels with the 2007-08 crisis in terms of its food security crisis. As a result, political instability and social unrest could just be around the corner for some middle-income countries.