How do wars lead to food shortages in the world?

With the continuation of the Russian war in Ukraine, turmoil began to spread in commodity markets, as the parties to the conflict served as a food basket for some countries in the world.

Ukraine and Russia are two of the world's top five grain exporters. By some estimates, global food security is at stake, with global agricultural trade with these two countries amounting to about $1.8 trillion.

The figures indicate that Ukraine, the fourth largest exporter of wheat and yellow maize in the world, exported alone 17% of the amount of maize and barley that was marketed for global trade in 2020.

Turkey is the world's most dependent on agri-food commodities from Russia, at 22%, according to UNCTAD calculations on UN data for 2020. The agro-food commodities monitored by the data include wheat, corn, sunflower oil, and cereals.

After Turkey comes Egypt, with a dependence on Russia of 15.1% and about 7.5% on Ukraine, then China with 5.6% depending on Russian agricultural food commodities, and 17.4% of dependence on Ukraine.

According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhry, direct effects of food supply chains are beginning to appear in Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh and Iran. These countries buy more than 60% of their wheat needs from Russia and Ukraine.

Countries such as Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and Pakistan are also highly dependent on the two countries for wheat supplies.

With the planting season starting soon in Ukraine and Russia, the UN expert expressed concern about the long-term disruptions that the food conflict will cause.