Repercussions of the Ukraine war on global food markets

The European Parliament Committee on Agriculture invited FAO Chief Economist Máximo Torero to speak on the impacts of the war in Ukraine on global food markets.

Torero stated that the war in Ukraine was exacerbating the already alarming figures described in the recently launched 2022 edition of the Global Report on Food Crises.

He noted that “if we do not act appropriately, we risk adding more than 11 million people within 2022 alone to the global number of undernourished people which already amounts to more than 810 million people.”

The FAO Chief Economist presented three major types of risk to global food security, emanating from the war in Ukraine:

1- the risks related to the humanitarian aspect;
2- the risks derived from the direct impacts of the conflict on global food and agriculture, including prices;
3- the risks related to macro and cross-cutting factors.

Torero proposed three measures to combat these threats:

1- a rapid response plan for Ukraine, implemented on the ground together with partners
2- a framework of reconstruction in the agribusiness sector;
3- a Food Import Financing Facility (FIFF) that helps vulnerable countries to ease their immediate food import financing costs.

The presentation was followed by an exchange with MEPs from different political groups, including other Members of the European Parliamentary Alliance against Hunger and Malnutrition, for which the FAO Liaison in Brussels acts as Secretariat.

You can watch a recording of the session here and read the presentation here.

You can read more about FAO’s response to the war in Ukraine here.