Summary
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Europe that it cannot withstand Russia without Ukraine’s military, calling Ukraine’s victory vital to stopping Kremlin expansion.
Speaking to Polish media, Zelenskyy stressed that Russia’s larger, more brutal army would target other European nations if Ukraine falls.
He criticized Western allies for underestimating Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions, urging them to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses.
Eu is mostly self sufficient on base foods:
https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-11/efscm-assessment-autumn-2023_en.pdf
If you look at fig. 4 on page 5, almost every meat source is above 100%, and fig 5 show most plant foods vary between 60-130%.
In the 70’s the ECC which EU was called back then, turned European agriculture around from huge deficits to huge surpluses. To ensure self sufficiency in case of international destabilization. This resulted in enormous stockpiles, leading to a more balanced policy, which we seem to have achieved.
In short EU is NOT dependent on food from Ukraine, but others are.
We do import soy and maize, but have a surplus on grains.
The main shortfall in the EU is protein crops, not just soy but most of our lentils are from Canada, we’re more of a pea continent and not really growing that many of them. It’s unlikely that imports from the Americas will be cut off, though, and if they are then we still won’t be anywhere close to famine but meat and milk products will become a lot more expensive.
True, but as it is now, farmers in EU are actually paid for NOT farming as much as they can. EU can increase production significantly within a year. But yes that would mean that prices would increase on some products, but I don’t think it would increase very much on meat, although it would probably make fodder a bit more expensive.
EU has capacity for significant surplus production overall, and we could shift a lot of imported products to products grown in the EU.
Ah ok then!