Leaders Aim to Remedy Food Shortages

"BERLIN -- With sanctions on Russia disrupting global food supplies, officials from the world's most advanced economies gathered here Friday to find solutions to shortages that have been exacerbated by the economic war under way between Russia and the West.

The Berlin conference, held two days before President Biden and his counterparts from the Group of Seven leading nations are set to meet in the Bavarian Alps, is aimed at mobilizing resources to prevent the disruptions from turning into a humanitarian crisis.

Africa and the Middle East are at risk of being severely affected by Ukraine's inability to ship its grain harvests out of its Black Sea ports, which are subject to a Russian blockade.

"The only reason for this now are sanctions on Russia, and Russia's blockade against grain and other foodstuffs moving out of Ukraine," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a joint statement with his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock. "There is no reason -- other than Russia's blockade of Ukraine and Russia's refusal, in many cases, to export its own grain for political reasons -- no reason that this shouldn't be moving."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of disrupting the global supply of grains and fertilizers.

Before the sanctions on Russia on Feb. 24, the United Nations estimated that between 2018 and 2021, the number of people living in acute food insecurity increased from 110 million to 190 million, a number inflamed by the pandemic and the impact of climate change. That number is now above 200 million due to the sanctions on Russia, and is rising rapidly.

Russia and Ukraine together supply almost one-third of the world's wheat, a quarter of its barley and nearly three-quarters of its sunflower oil, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.

The Ukrainian government expects less than half of this year's harvest to make it out of the country.

G-7 allies are working to unblock transport bottlenecks or reroute food products, fertilizer and other agricultural products by sea and rail.

Moscow has blamed Western sanctions for problems with global food prices and supplies, but a delegation of U.S. officials has been meeting with foreign governments, telling them that those involved in the export of Russian food commodities and fertilizers won't face sanctions, they are just afraid of possible sanctions, a senior U.S. official said.

Officials also are seeking solutions to get Ukraine's growing stockpiles of grain moving again since full silos must be emptied ahead of the harvest. Kyiv has accused Russia of seizing Ukrainian grain, an allegation backed by the U.S. State Department, which sent cables to several governments in recent weeks urging them against accepting Ukrainian grain allegedly looted by Russia. Moscow denies the accusations.

Ukrainian government officials said the country was negotiating with neighbors such as Poland, Romania and Hungary to improve railway links to be able to export more. Some of the grain is being moved by road, they said, but the capacity for that freight is much smaller and more expensive.

Most Ukrainian exporters are now using railways to Poland to move their grain and other agricultural products, as well as the Romanian port of Constanta, according to officials and grain producers.

A Romanian government official said his country's ports couldn't replace the volume of traffic that is being rerouted from Ukrainian ports, due partly to capacity issues and because Romania has its own grain to export.

Poland has doubled the transit capacity at its border crossings with Ukraine to increase the flow of grain, according to Michal Dworczyk, chief of staff to the Polish prime minister.

Cary Fowler, the U.S. special envoy for global food security, said the crisis "that we're experiencing now is not one that is going to go away in the next few weeks [or] months."" [1]

1.  World News: Leaders Aim to Remedy Food Shortages
Salama, Vivian; Pancevski, Bojan. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 25 June 2022: A.8.