The ripple effects of concurrent crises are leading the world on a path to crushing hunger — and the possibility of more war.
A brutal invasion in Eastern Europe, a chemical industry facing an unprecedented crisis and climate change threatening to slash crop yields across the globe.
"Wheat is a staple product in the diets of so many," Rabobank grains analyst Cheryl Kalish Gordon says, "20 per cent of the world's calories come from wheat and in some parts of Africa and the Middle East it's much higher." "It threatens to tip tens of millions of people over the edge into food insecurity, followed by malnutrition, mass hunger and famine," he said.
There are three primary nutrients that make up most commercial fertilisers: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. That company also owned facilities across the Atlantic, where those surging natural gas prices prompted the temporary closure of two plants in the UK. Further east, China was slashing production to curb emissions, while also limiting exports to retain what was produced onshore.
“The cost of production has increased, input costs have escalated, so it’s in a bloody mess made by human beings,” University of Western Australia agricultural professor Kadambot Siddique says.You just need to look to Sri Lanka to see the consequence of suddenly being cut off from fertiliser. Fewer than 100 years later, American women, lacking food and money, sparked what would become known as the Southern bread riots in the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
“The Russo-Ukrainian War is having ripple effects beyond Europe and could lead to crisis and displacement outside of the continent,” they wrote. With a world awash with milk and limited markets to send it to. Farmers would find themselves out of business.Russia's invasion has left some 20 million tonnes held up in Black Sea ports in southern Ukraine — a major supplier to the World Food Programme, according to Ms Kalisch Gordon.
"Right now, there are high input costs, they haven't been able to sell all their crops from this year and last year, so they don't necessarily have cash flow.Where does this leave Australian farmers?
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