Despite fears that Russia’s war against Ukraine might trigger a global food crisis, there have been no major disruptions to worldwide shipments of wheat since the war began, found the World Bank in a new report.
In 2020, Russia was the number three global producer of wheat (85.9 million tons) while Ukraine came in at number eight (producing 24.9 million tons). As the two nations collectively produced almost one-third of all exported wheat, many experts forecast major disruptions in supply chains when the war broke out in early 2022. But despite numerous sanctions being imposed against Russia and the collapse of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2023, that allowed Ukraine unfettered export of its wheat by sea, the volume of global wheat shipments have largely remained unaffected even to this day.
According to the World Bank report, wheat prices (which had been on the rise before the start of the war) briefly increased but returned to pre-war levels by the end of 2022. Furthermore, regions of the world that did see disruptions of wheat imports managed to find new suppliers or temporarily substitute wheat imports with other grains.
Wheat facts
Wheat is second only to rice as the world’s most commonly consumed food, and roughly 35% of all human beings on the planet eat wheat as the primary staple in their diet. Approximately two-thirds of wheat grown is destined for human consumption while the other third is used for animal feed (poultry and livestock), paper production, biofuels (ethanol), bioplastics, construction materials (including particleboard), and as industrial absorbents.
Many of the world’s poorest and most food-insecure countries are heavily dependent on wheat imports, so there were fears that supply chain disruptions due to the war in Ukraine would have catastrophic results. For example, two-thirds of all the wheat imported to Lebanon and 84% of all wheat imported into the Gambia came from Ukraine prior to the war.
See also: Top 10 wheat-producing countries in the world today
Furthermore, Ukraine was the number one supplier of wheat to the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) prior to 2022, so there were concerns that rising market prices and increased scarcity as a result of the war would lead to adverse effects for those areas of the world most urgently in need of food aid, with Carl Skau, Deputy Executive Director of the WFP warning of a “humanitarian doom loop.” Despite these pessimistic predictions, the WFP successfully managed to source additional wheat from other countries such as Turkey and Pakistan, and Ukraine continues to provide more than half of the wheat bought by the WFP even now.
Asia was the only region of the world which saw any significant disruptions in their wheat imports, dropping a staggering 54% in the latter half of 2022 compared to before the war. But by mid-2023, wheat imports to Asia returned to pre-war levels thanks to increased purchases from Russia and Romania. Romania was not a significant wheat supplier to Asia before the war, but Ukraine now exports significant volumes of wheat (14 million tons a year) via Romanian ports because their own ports on the Black Sea are currently largely inoperable.
How experts got it wrong
It should be noted that the vast majority of global wheat shipments are transported on dry bulk ships as opposed to container ships. These dry bulk ships are usually charter vessels that sail on demand rather than on a fixed schedule, allowing the supply chain to remain flexible and easily adjust to changing circumstances such as the closure of Ukrainian ports.
Furthermore, all of the countries that share a border with Ukraine (barring Russia and Belarus) relaxed their pre-war rules and dropped all tariffs, import duties, quotas, port fees, and other regulatory barriers in order to facilitate the export of as much Ukrainian wheat (and other agricultural products) as possible as part of an initiative known as the Solidarity Lanes.
Although in 2024, five EU nations called on the reimposition of import duties for Ukrainian grain, and several EU countries bordering Ukraine have seen farmers protesting the importation of Ukrainian wheat and other foodstuffs, this has not led to significant disruptions in the global supply chain or an increase in wheat prices.
In addition, despite the ongoing war, Ukraine’s wheat harvest in 2023 was larger than expected and rose 5% compared to 2022 to nearly match pre-war levels, providing further resilience for global supply chains.
Thusly, predictions such as Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, warning that millions would starve, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declaring that the war would “drive global hunger to famine levels,” US Secretary of State Blinken’s rhetoric of a “massive food insecurity crisis” on the planet, WFP director David Beasley sounding the alarm about a global population “marching towards starvation” as a result of the war in Ukraine have thankfully not come to pass.
What about global hunger
The more sober reality on the ground is that global wheat production has slightly increased since the war began, disruptions in supply chains are smoothed over, Ukraine’s wheat harvests have remained virtually unaffected by the war, and the end of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2023 was accommodated by shipping Ukrainian foodstuffs (including wheat) via alternative channels.
Unfortunately, hunger crises are increasing around the world, but due to a lack of funding for agencies such as the WFP rather than anything to do with the events unfolding in Ukraine. At the end of 2023, the WFP warned it was facing a 60% funding shortfall, something never seen before in the organization’s history, and nearly half of the programs for the 86 food-insecure countries that it serves have been reduced in size and scope. The WFP received just $8.4 billion in funding in 2023.
Approximately 783 million people worldwide are facing chronic hunger today along with 333 million people facing acute levels of food insecurity. Countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and South Sudan are suffering from widespread famine conditions while countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, and Uganda are suffering from persistent food insecurity. In 2023, there was an increase of 21.6 million people facing a high level of food insecurity compared to the year prior.
See also: Why is global hunger still on the rise and what can we do about it? | Experts’ Opinions
This year, the WFP had to completely cease operations in Syria, a country with 12 million people in need of food assistance and has been forced to stop providing all food assistance to refugees in Iraq, many of whom hail from Syria. The WFP has also drastically reduced emergency food assistance for 10 million people in Afghanistan, 900,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and cut its supply of emergency food rations in half for hungry people in Yemen.
Simply put, there is plenty of wheat to go around, available on demand at fair prices, but a lack of funding is causing wide-scale famines in Africa to go unaddressed and millions more people around the globe to face starvation, stunting, and chronic food insecurity.
