The exports figure doesn’t tell the whole story though. There was a twitter thread going around earlier in the week showing that most grain is consumed in the country its produced in. The shortfall is something closer to 1%, which of course hits poor and less agricultural countries most heavily but can be made up with exports from other countries like India. I get the impression that the issue is global shipping logistics and the greed of capitalists, not a huge shortfall in actual food supply.
Could be. Food is a tradable commodity like everything else. Investors can use a perceived crisis to pump prices.
The price of something usually is less about pure supply and demand, and more about what investors have manipulated it to.
First, a worldwide food and energy crisis is now inevitable. Ukraine and Russia together export 27 percent of the world’s wheat, and Russia is a major global supplier of fertiliser. Ongoing hostilities could force international food and animal feed prices up by 20 percent, and massively affect hunger levels in food-insecure hotspots.
This is so fucked. All of it so unnecessary.
