The conflict triggered by Russia in Ukraine, two of the world’s main grain suppliers, has highlighted the vulnerability of agricultural and food systems. If the “Black Sea Grain Initiative” (ICMN) of July 2022 allowed the export of Ukrainian products, Moscow announced its end only a year later.
The war in Ukraine, one of the main producers and exporters of wheat, barley, corn, sunflowers and rapeseed, has reshuffled the cards of our globalized agriculture. Not only has the conflict disrupted agricultural activities in the regions affected by the fighting, damaging infrastructure, forcing farmers to flee or causing soil and water pollution, but it has also complicated access to agricultural inputs such as as seeds and fertilizers.
In 2022, the UN feared that the war in Ukraine would cause a “coming hurricane of famines”, while the global food situation was already degraded by the Covid-19 epidemic. The UN goal of ending hunger by 2030 will not be achieved. Around 735 million people suffered from it in 2022, an increase of 122 million compared to 2019, before the pandemic, but these figures remained relatively stable between 2021 and 2022. While hunger has declined in Asia and Latin America, it increased in West Asia and Africa. Another consequence of the war in Ukraine, the price of cereals saw a record increase of 18% in 2022 compared to the previous year, fueled by speculation on the agricultural raw materials markets.
The feared apocalypse, however, did not occur for several reasons. First, with the increase in gas prices, certain countries in the Middle East have seen their resources grow. Then, in 2022, there were no major climatic disasters among large grain producers and exporters (Russia, Canada, United States, France). Finally, despite the war, Ukraine continued to produce and export.
diplomatic and logistical challenge
Thanks to the ICMN, the country was able to sell its grain through its ports of Odessa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhny/Pivdennyi. Russia, for its part, ensured that its exports of agricultural products were not impacted by Western sanctions. To implement this agreement, a joint coordination center was created in Istanbul to secure the corridor 24 hours a day, placing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (since 2014) at the center of this food diplomacy.
A quarter of the shipments were intended for low-income countries (Egypt, India, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, Sudan, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti), preventing them from serious famines. Another quarter went to middle-income states (Turkey, China, Bulgaria) and half to high-income nations (Spain, Netherlands, Italy, South Korea, Romania, Germany, France, Greece, Ireland, Israel ), limiting inflation. This agreement therefore enabled the export of 32.85 million tonnes of food products. It was coupled with “solidarity corridors” set up under the aegis of the European Union (EU) and using the infrastructures of its members, to allow the export of 15 million tonnes of cereals via new routes using road, rail, the Danube and the ports of neighboring countries. While normally 90% of Ukrainian grain exports pass through Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, these now represent only 40%, the majority passing by land routes. Despite these efforts and the unprecedented logistical challenge, cereal exports are down sharply (by 44%) compared to the pre-war years, when Ukraine exported 45 million tonnes of cereals per year.
A year after its implementation, Russia not only decided to suspend its participation in the ICMN, but also announced that any ship heading to Ukrainian ports would be considered a military target. The Kremlin makes its reintegration conditional on a reduction in Western sanctions and thus, by endangering the supplies of many countries and worsening food insecurity, makes the grain blockade a geopolitical weapon.
Cereal routes from the Black Sea
