Despite the experience of food price spikes a decade ago, nations are compounding the disruptions of warfare in the Black Sea region by hoarding their domestic supplies, said the global research group CGIAR. “Currently, about 16 percent of global food trade … is affected by export bans and licensing restrictions,” it said in a report.
“This is already more than during the previous global food crises and is keeping world market prices elevated,” said the report, which lays out seven actions that would limit the war’s impact on food security. The report endorsed such steps as sharper and up-to-the-minute monitoring of food supplies and prices in vulnerable countries and the careful assessment of interventions, such as the use of food reserves, for unintended consequences that discourage food production in the near term.
Short-term measures that have proven effective, said the report, include removing biofuel subsidies and mandates and allowing market prices to guide producer and consumer decisions. Under the heading of “Do not worsen the situation,” CGIAR said, “The measures considered by some countries to take environmentally protected lands into production may end up causing lasting damage without making much of an impact on production to lower food prices.”
The report, “Seven actions to limit the impact of war in Ukraine on food security,” is available here.