Global food security and other challenges at SPIEF 2022

In connection with the negative trends in the global economy, the UN predicts the onset of a global crisis on a scale close to the catastrophic situation in the last decade of the twentieth century. The challenges of the global crisis will be one of the main topics of the International Economic Forum, which will be held in St. Petersburg on June 15–18, 2022.

The Global Food, Energy and Financial Crisis Response Team, established under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General, predicts the strongest increase in crisis phenomena in the world over the past 30 years. The likelihood of an «economic winter» at the end of this year in the developed countries of the West is also predicted by the politicians of the European Union and the United States. This is due to a sharp restructuring of the world economy and, first of all, the negative consequences of global inflation in the dollar and euro area, as well as a reduction in energy purchases. Western experts suggest that the crisis will affect more than 1.5 billion people on the planet. Basically, these are the populations of the poorest countries in the world participating in the UN humanitarian food program.

According to DW, the coming crisis in the field of global food security is connected, in particular, with the situation in Ukraine, which now has about 22 million tons of wheat, barley and other crops in its granaries. This is from last season.

Ukrainian politicians say that it is not possible to export these products from Ukrainian granaries by sea from the ports of Odessa and Nikolaev. President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia blocked the ports and there was no way to take out the grain. This statement was made in May this year. But at the same time, in June, Zelensky refused Turkey’s offer to purchase products in full at a discount of more than 25%.

And 21 Turkish merchant ships also have been in Ukrainian ports for several months. Why is Kyiv not doing anything to remove mines and unblock ports? Why the President of Ukraine also refuses the proposal to clear the Ukrainian port areas in the Black Sea? The ports of Odessa and Nikolaev have not been navigable for grain carriers of any state for almost 100 days. This will be the case until Kyiv decides to remove the sea mines laid this spring.A strange situation, like a stalemate in chess. Zelenskiy complains about the impossibility of maritime export of grain, but at the same time refuses to provide security in the territorial waters of Ukraine. This causes growing irritation of Ankara. Turkey’s Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Vakhit Kirishchi said that Ankara is ready to be an arbitrator in this process. «Both Russia and Ukraine trust us,» Yeni Şafak daily quoted the minister as saying.

Unfortunately, the grain situation has reached an impasse. Like many peace initiatives. Narratives against Russia in “fomenting a catastrophe” are not relevant, because Kyiv, as one of the parties to the conflict, is doing everything possible to keep the grain as a “hostage” or “human shield” before Moscow’s attack. The Ukrainian side deliberately destroyed more than 50,000 tons of grain by setting fire to a large granary in the seaport of Mariupol.

Of course, more than 20 million tons of grain in Ukraine’s warehouses is only part of the complex problem associated with the global crisis. Ukrainian grain is less than 5% of the total world volume, which does not allow us to speak of an extremely horrific catastrophe. Bad, but not terrible yet. Note that the food problem on the planet depends not only on the yield and market of agricultural crops.

This puzzle, which depends primarily on the volatility of the world market. At which modern «sanctions» market and exchange prices for energy carriers, mineral fertilizers, etc. show rocket growth. So much the worse, this is growth with a sharp reduction in purchases and deliveries to global partners — the EU countries and the United States, in the first place. In this case, Russia, as one of the leading producers of wheat (more than 80 million tons in 2021, the forecast for this year is a new increase), acts as an additional guarantor of global food security.

These and other current challenges and opportunities are the topics announced within the framework of the new SPIEF-22. Of course, in the context of the sanctions wars and the policy of isolationism, Russia, which is faced with a “cancellation culture” within the G7 club, remains one of the key global players. In the latest realities of the transforming global economy and geopolitics, international turbulence, any opportunity to overcome the crisis cannot be ignored.

The main participants of the SPIEF, which is taking place in the Northern capital of Russia, this time are represented geographically by the countries of Africa and Asia, including the member states of the global geopolitical blocs of the SCO, BRICS and the EAEU.

We will announce the results of the forum later.

SPIEF-22: https://forumspb.com/?lang=ru