Looking Beyond Ukraine

15 June 2022, Washington, DC - The war in Ukraine is having rippling effects on global food security. To take a deeper look at how the war impacts the global food and grains crisis, with specific attention to impacts on the unprecedented drought in the Horn of Africa, Interaction convened a panel during the Interaction General Forum from 15-16 June 2022. The session featured Jocelyn Brown-Hall, Director of the Liaison Office for North America at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Jonathon Anderson, Team Leader for the Horn of Africa Drought Coordination Cell, USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, in a moderated discussion with Maggie Fleming, Director, Humanitarian Practice at InterAction.  

“We have real-time evidence of how the Russian war in Ukraine is disrupting supply chains and affecting food security in hunger hotspots,” said Brown Hall referring to the latest Hunger Hotspots report, which includes Ukraine – a major agricultural powerhouse – demonstrating the devastating effects of the war on the people and the economy of the country.  

Together, Ukraine and Russia comprise a significant share of the global market for key agricultural commodities and are responsible for 35 percent of Barley, 10 percent of Maize, 20 percent of Sunflower Seeds, 55 percent of Sunflower Oils, and 30 percent of Wheat. Countries that are heavily dependent on Ukraine and Russia for their imports are already among the world’s most food insecure and have insufficient domestic supply. For example, Eritrea and Somalia rely on both Russia and Ukraine for 100 percent and 92 percent of their wheat imports, respectively. This is compounded by climate and the rising cost of fuel, food and fertilizers, which have increased in price similarly to levels during the 2008 financial crisis.  

In the Horn of Africa, there are at least 18.4 million food-insecure people across Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya. In Somalia, a fourth consecutive failed rainy season, skyrocketing prices and an underfunded humanitarian response have resulted in a 160 percent increase in people facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, starvation, and disease. A new report from the Famine Early Warning Network and the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit of FAO shows that 7.1 million Somalis (close to 50 percent of the population) now face crisis-level food insecurity or worse through at least September 2022. 

FAO is scaling up actions in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia around emergency livestock interventions. Livestock represent important assets for rural producers, yet one-third of all livestock have died in the Horn since last year due to failed rains. Providing technical support in livestock health and nutrition can have long-lasting impacts by ensuring livelihoods and nutrition for vulnerable families.  

Even though nearly 80 percent of people living in IPC phase 3 or higher are living in rural areas and rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, only 8 percent of food security funding currently goes toward agriculture.   For example, in Afghanistan, for only USD 160 per family FAO was able to provide winter wheat seed kits that provided enough cereals for an entire year. This same amount of cereals would cost 4-5x that if it were bought in a supermarket setting and 9-10x that much in food aid.    

To avoid the most devastating impacts of the Ukraine crisis on the most vulnerable populations in the most food insecure countries, agriculture must be an important aspect of our response. “It is crucial that we do not lose sight of the important potential that agriculture has in emergency contexts, and for FAO, including agriculture in our response means simultaneously building resilience,” said Jocelyn Brown Hall. “Including agriculture in humanitarian response represents an extremely cost-effective way to reduce hunger and malnutrition globally.”