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The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO’s) food price index averaged 159.3 last month, a “giant leap” of 12.6-percent gain from February’s level, which itself was the highest since the index was created in 1990, the FAO said.
The index stands 34 percent higher than a year ago.
The index rose at the fastest monthly rate since 2008, the FAO said.
Grain prices shot up 17.1 percent, largely because Ukraine and Russia together make up 30 percent of the world’s wheat exports and 20 percent of corn shipments.
About 50 countries depend on Russia and Ukraine for at least 30 percent of the wheat they import, according to the Financial Times.
Shipments have now been shut down because of the Ukraine war, the FAO said. More than 24,000 Ukraine rail cars are loaded with various commodities but are idle because ports and rail lines have been destroyed by the war, according to NBC News.
Last year, 36 of the 55 countries dealing with food crises relied on Russia and Ukraine for at least 10 percent of their wheat imports, the FT said.
If food shortages persist, another 13 million people could face malnutrition, the FAO calculated, with most in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by sub-Saharan Africa, the near East, and north Africa.
The FAO’s index for vegetable oil prices soared 23.2 percent; Ukraine and Russia are the world’s first and second largest exporters of sunflower oil, commonly used for cooking in the developing world (see related article in this issue).
As much as 30 percent of Ukraine’s cropland producing grains and sunflowers will remain unplanted this spring and unharvested later this year, according to forecasts by the FAO and Ukraine’s government.
Cereal prices have climbed 37 percent. Prices for sugar and dairy products also have skyrocketed, the FAO noted.
Various factors contributed to the rise, including supply chain disruptions lingering from the COVID War and poor harvests in Canada, China, the U.S., and South America, according to Josef Schmidhuber, FAO’s deputy director of markets and trade.
Although he was unable to say exactly what proportion of food inflation is attributable to the Ukraine war, “there are no exports through the Black Sea and exports through the Baltics are also coming to an end,” he said.
The lack of grains and other foods shipping from the war zone threaten food shortages and possible famines in parts of Africa, Asia, and the Mideast where people already are going hungry, he noted.
In parts of central and west Africa, food already was in short supply because of the COVID virus, wars, and bad weather that made for poor harvests, World Food Program researcher Sib Ollo told The Associated Press.
The Ukraine war has worsened the crisis, he said, adding that six million of the region’s children are malnourished and 16 million people face food insecurity.
Farmers are particularly concerned about a pending lack of fertilizer to ensure the next crop, he said. Russia is the world’s chief exporter of fertilizer and global prices are up 30 percent or more in the area since the war began (see related story in this issue).
In parts of Africa, households spend as much as 40 percent of their incomes on food; in developed nations, the proportion averages 17 percent, the FT reported.
TREND FORECAST: As we have noted in this and previous Trends Journals, lower wages and rising prices of food and basic commodities such as fuel, have set off protests in several countries, including Sri Lanka, where food shortages and rising prices have sparked a political and economic crisis.
The Ukraine War and resulting sanctions, coupled with ongoing supply chain issues and bad weather in key regions, could send food prices up another 8 to 22 percent this year, the FAO warned.
And, should the Ukraine War continue and wars break out in the Middle East as tensions rise between Israel and Palestinians and possibly Iran, sharply spiking oil prices will drive inflation much higher.