{"id":89621,"date":"2023-01-27T13:15:45","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T19:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=89621"},"modified":"2023-01-27T13:15:45","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T19:15:45","slug":"89621","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=89621","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018A perfect storm for the whole food system right now\u2019: One of the world\u2019s largest fertilizer companies warns that every country\u2014even those in Europe\u2014is facing a food crisis<\/a><\/p>\n

The Ukraine war upended the global economy in many ways. Energy markets have been among the\u00a0most affected<\/a>, with declining Russian oil and natural gas exports to the West sparking a domino effect of\u00a0fuel crises<\/a>\u00a0worldwide. But the war has also warped another critical facet of the global economy: food.<\/div>\n
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Prior to the war, Russia and Ukraine were\u00a0global breadbaskets<\/a>\u00a0as\u00a0top producers<\/a>\u00a0and exporters of wheat, sunflower seeds, and barley. The fighting ended up aggravating hunger and food crises in\u00a0low-income countries<\/a>\u00a0that are dependent on imports. But both Russia and Ukraine are also\u00a0key cogs<\/a>\u00a0in the global fertilizer industry, and the war has triggered a\u00a0shortage<\/a>\u00a0of the critical commodity that few people consider but is nevertheless essential to global food security.<\/div>\n
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Much as Russian President Vladimir Putin leveraged the world\u2019s reliance on his country\u2019s fossil fuels to\u00a0weaponize energy supplies<\/a>\u00a0during the war, he is doing something very similar with fertilizer and food, Svein Tore Holsether, CEO of Norwegian chemical company\u00a0Yara International<\/a>, among the world\u2019s largest fertilizer producers and suppliers, told the\u00a0Financial Times\u00a0<\/em>in an\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0published Thursday.<\/div>\n
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Putin\u2019s energy gambit, which sent fossil fuel prices soaring and left Europe on the\u00a0brink of recession<\/a>\u00a0last year, has so far not gone as expected, with a\u00a0warm winter<\/a>\u00a0working against him and Europe\u00a0able to buy natural gas\u00a0<\/a>from elsewhere. But Holsether warned the world\u2019s reliance on Russia for fertilizer threatens more disruption of food supply, adding to existing challenges of logistics bottlenecks and climate change.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIf you look at the role that we have allowed Russia to have in global food supply, we depend on them. How did that happen? What kind of weapon is that? And Putin is weaponizing food,\u201d Holsether said.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt is sort of a perfect storm for the whole food system right now: very challenging in Europe, of course, with higher prices; even worse in other parts of the world where a human being dies every four seconds as a result of hunger,\u201d he added.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Global fertilizer crisis<\/strong><\/h2>\n
When natural gas prices surged last year after Russia invaded Ukraine, so did\u00a0prices for fertilizer<\/a>, which manufacturers such as Yara produce with ammonia and nitrogen obtained as a byproduct from natural gas. Fertilizer prices had already begun\u00a0increasing<\/a>\u00a0in 2021 due to high energy costs and supply-chain issues.<\/div>\n
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Declining natural gas prices and weak demand among farmers have eased pressures somewhat over the past few months. Earlier this month, fertilizer prices fell to their\u00a0lowest level<\/a>\u00a0in nearly two years in tandem with natural gas prices. But despite falling prices, Holsether insists\u00a0that the global fertilizer market is precarious, and countries should shift from relying on Russian natural gas, to safeguard their agricultural industries.<\/div>\n
\u201cPutin has weaponized energy and they\u2019re weaponizing food as well,\u201d Holsether\u00a0told the BBC<\/a>\u00a0at last week\u2019s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. \u201cIt\u2019s the saying, \u2018Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.\u2019\u201d<\/div>\n
Fertilizer prices\u00a0remain high<\/a>\u00a0by historical standards, and the World Bank warned earlier this month that global supply is still tight due to the war, production cuts in Europe, and stricter export controls in China.<\/div>\n

Averting a food crisis<\/strong><\/h2>\n
If fertilizer is in short supply or prices remain unaffordable to many countries, farmers may be unable to keep their soil fertile enough for crops.<\/div>\n
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Concerns over fertilizer have taken center stage in recent weeks in Africa, which is\u00a0heavily reliant<\/a>\u00a0on Russian food imports, and where agricultural production has taken a blow in recent years due to drought in many countries. The eastern Horn of Africa\u2014including Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya\u2014has been particularly hard-hit, as it is likely on the verge of a\u00a0sixth straight failed rainy season<\/a>, the worst drought conditions in 70 years of recorded data.<\/div>\n
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Securing additional sources of fertilizer was the cornerstone of a\u00a0$2.5 billion<\/a>\u00a0U.S. food assistance package to Africa signed last month, while Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen noted the importance of\u00a0stabilizing fertilizer supply<\/a>\u00a0in Africa multiple times during a visit to Zambia this week.<\/div>\n
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\u201cNow we\u2019re in 2023, it\u2019s tragic and shouldn\u2019t be like that,\u201d Holsether told the\u00a0FT\u00a0<\/em>about the state of global hunger. \u201cThat should be a very strong reminder of the need to have a more robust food system\u2014from a climate perspective, from a logistics perspective, but also from a political perspective.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Holsether said that all countries must become more self-sufficient with their food production. For fertilizer, he touted the promise of \u201cgreen fertilizers<\/a>\u201d that use hydrogen and renewable energy to produce ammonia rather than natural gas, saying that clean and local solutions are critical to decoupling the global food system from Russia\u2019s war.<\/div>\n
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Holsether also warned that European nations should not rely on their wealth to avert a food or fertilizer crisis. Like with natural gas, Europe has in recent months\u00a0turned to the U.S. for nitrogen<\/a>\u00a0to replace Russian imports, but Holsether warned that Europe buying its way out of a food crisis is no remedy for global food insecurity.<\/div>\n
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\u201cYes. Not near term\u2026there will be a shortage and there will be a global auction for food\u2014but Europe is a wealthy part of the world,\u201d Holsether said when asked if Europe should be concerned for its food security.<\/div>\n
\u201cBut we need to think it through,\u201d he added, saying that Europe buying food and fertilizer products from other countries will only create more global supply shortages and take away from other countries in dire need.<\/div>\n
\u201cIn terms of food and food security, when you have that, you see wars or mass migrations, extremism, all these things,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2018A perfect storm for the whole food system right now\u2019: One of the world\u2019s largest fertilizer companies warns that every country\u2014even those in Europe\u2014is facing a food crisis The Ukraine war upended the global economy in many ways. Energy markets have been among the\u00a0most affected, with declining Russian oil and natural gas exports to the … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89622,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89621\/revisions\/89622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}