Devex Dish: Ukrainian farmers at a loss over export crisis

The war in Ukraine has created an unprecedented global food crisis, with farmers unable to cultivate or move their grains out of the country and hunger also growing inside its borders. Sam Mednick reports for Devex this week from eastern Ukraine, where farmers are desperate to salvage the ability to plant their next crop.

Oleg Simonenko tells Sam he isn’t sure how he’ll get through the coming weeks after converting his 400-hectare (990-acre) farm into a base for Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces. He worries that Russian forces — which have already blown the roofs off of several communal storage buildings near his farm — could target his fields and burn the crops before the harvest.

If they do, that will only make things worse for the rest of the world. According to Matthew Hollingworth, the emergency coordinator for WFP in Ukraine, the country exported 51 million metric tons of grains last year — but about 20 million metric tons now sit in storage, unable to leave, and frantic negotiations for safe passage from Black Sea ports have not yielded results so far.

“If we can't find solutions to the Ukraine export crisis, then that's a staggering 17% jump in acute food insecurity,” Hollingworth says. “I can't think of a war in my 21 years with the World Food Programme … that has had this level of potential global impact.”

Visual story: Ukraine farmers on the front lines of a war fueling global food crisis

Not much to see here

Last week, United Nations officials and foreign, agriculture, and development ministers participated in an hourslong ministerial meeting in Berlin to discuss the global food crisis, following up on a conference held last month in New York.

While the event garnered high-level participation among foreign ministers, heads of U.N. agencies, and multilateral development banks, few concrete actions were announced at the gathering. Representatives from donor and recipient countries acknowledged the need to act quickly to avert the worst of a global food crisis, but new commitments were largely absent.

Read: No deal to get grain out of Ukraine as leaders tackle food insecurity

Number munching 

That’s the amount the G-7 has pledged to address the deterioration of global food security due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the continued effects from COVID-19, and climate change. More than half of that will come from the U.S., which announced $2.76 billion in new funding.

Nutrition advocates welcome the mention of the desire to stave off not only hunger but also malnutrition, but Simon Bishop of the Power of Nutrition tells me billions more would be needed to meet actual need. “Part of the problem is the world just can’t get its head around the enormity of the malnutrition coming down the track,” Bishop says.

Read: G-7 pledges $4.5B for food security, as advocates call for more

Bon app-étit

As climate change and the war in Ukraine escalate the global food crisis, innovators are looking for smart solutions that can help communities build resilience against these shocks. David Njagi, reporting for Devex, explores the advantages and limitations of digital platforms in transforming food systems.

While some are funded by development groups with a genuine interest in the innovations, they mostly address the issues facing farmers with a top-down approach — excluding smallholders from the decision-making process.

The adoption of “social agriculture” — a system that simplifies digital technologies to address farmers’ problems through a bottom-up approach — could be one solution.

Read: Kenyan innovators turn to smart farming as food crisis worsens (Pro)

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Reality check

In an op-ed for Devex, Mohammed Omer Mukhier-Abuzein — the regional director for Africa at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies — lays out the three factors he says are behind the “chronic, decadeslong suffering of millions” of food-insecure Africans:

• Influential players failing to work efficiently and in unison to ensure equitable distribution of food.
• A “constant inability” among these key players to learn from previous setbacks.
• An overdependence in Africa on imported food.

“We need to ensure that the response to hunger crises is less reactive and shortsighted, and that it does not rely on the same techniques that have consistently failed to tackle underlying issues,” Mukhier-Abuzein writes.

Opinion: Tackling Africa’s hunger crisis starts with long-term planning

SOCO-mplicated

On Tuesday, FAO released its flagship report “The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2022,” examining new developments, longer-term trends, and structural changes in food and agricultural markets. FAO Senior Economist George Rapsomaniki tells me how vital the global trade system is for nations’ food security, and how self-sufficiency isn’t the right goal for countries most affected by the war in Ukraine. You can go deep into the weeds on the report here.

Chew on this

A global movement seeks to address food insecurity, water scarcity, and inadequate sanitation by using human urine as fertilizer. [The New York Times]

The World Bank Group has approved $2.3 billion to help eastern and southern Africa tackle food insecurity and increase food system resilience. [World Bank]

Countries are racing to ban exports and secure food for their own populations, marking a new era of stockpiling. [The Telegraph]