As a result of the Russian grain ban
Hungry Afghanistan will pay the price for Putin's war
The Afghan people have been hardest hit by the Ukraine war.
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An elderly man walks past a hut belonging to the World Food Programme, which is feeding 140 million beneficiaries this year.
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Russia's ban on exporting food and fertilizer to stabilize supplies and prices reverberates at home as Moscow wages war on Ukraine in its own backyard, pushing Central Asian nations into economic crisis and threatening to move Afghanistan from hunger to famine.
This war in Ukraine spread terror in the markets, and raised the prices of grain, fuel, and fertilizer.
Ukraine and Russia each produce about 30% of the world's wheat production, while Russia produces most of the world's fertilizer production.
The longer the war continues, the more unstable the supply and the higher the prices will be.
devastating effect on weak countries
The impact of all this on weak countries like Afghanistan would be devastating, with millions suffering from food shortages and children dying from malnutrition, economists say.
Other weak countries, such as Yemen, Lebanon, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, can be expected to have bad repercussions, at least for the next year or beyond.
The war is expected to affect crops and revenues, not only in Ukraine, where grain cultivation is expected to be cut in half this year, but also in countries that rely on Russian fertilizer to boost their crops, according to an economist at the World Food Program, Frederica Gharib.
The World Food Program spends $71 million a month on growing cereals, according to Gharib, a 44 percent increase over monthly expenditures in 2019, to meet existing needs.
And given that the war is going for the worse, the need will increase more, and this means that it is not the World Food Program that will spend more money to feed more mouths, but rather the hunger itself will increase in countries that are already suffering, now, from a lack of food, given that it will not There will be enough of this material.
Currently, the World Food Program has been forced to reduce rations for eight million people.
Afghans sell their organs
The most suffering of these will be Afghanistan, which is now reeling from four decades of war with little sustainable economy.
Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan last August, economic activity has stalled in that country, and US economic sanctions mean that many people don't have the money to buy anything, including food.
Desperate Afghans sold their own organs, as well as the organs of their children.
“The situation in Afghanistan is getting worse,” said Qais Mohammadi, an Afghan economist and assistant professor at a private university in Kabul.
As there is not one variable, but many, and the Ukrainian war came as an additional important variable, in addition to the unstable currency, the unstable banking system, the unstable political climate, the instability of decision-making, the absence of laws and regulations, and the freezing of billions of dollars in financial assets.
The World Food Program has warned that half of Afghanistan's population suffers from "food insecurity", while nine million people face famine-like conditions.
Gharib said that the number of hungry people around the world is about 44 million.
The Taliban's Ministry of Public Health said about 13,000 children died from malnutrition this year, although it was not possible to verify this figure.
The main food is bread
"Afghanistan is a terrible humanitarian crisis," Gharib said, stressing that in addition to Yemen and Lebanon, these countries were considered "very bleak places" before the war in Ukraine.
Gharib added that "the World Food Program's operations in Afghanistan, Yemen and Lebanon depend to a large extent on wheat.
Our resources do not allow us to move like before, because now we have to pay very high prices in global markets.”
In Afghanistan, where the main food is bread, importing wheat is essential.
Kazakhstan is a major supplier, but it doesn't have much to sell, as the effects of Russia's export curbs are starting to show in its neighbours.
Afghan economists predict that farmers in the eastern provinces will take advantage of higher prices in Pakistan, which itself receives aid from the World Food Program, to sell their grain crops abroad rather than at home.
Siege of the shores of the Black Sea
The strategic advisor of the Ukrainian Business and Trade Association, Nizar Bopetsky, said that Russia's blockade of the shores of the Black Sea has isolated Ukraine from global maritime trade, cutting off the supply of grain, vegetable oil, in addition to the barley needed to make livestock feed.
Most of the barley is exported and shipped through deep ports on the Black Sea, but no shipments have taken place since the war.
“Trade via sea routes was very important to ensure that there was a stable supply, and a stable price for these goods,” Bobetsky added, but given the export ban, “this leads to a significant reduction in supplies, and therefore prices will rise.
Accordingly, it is most likely that developing countries will be affected.”
And it does not depend on Afghanistan.
Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan will suffer from the Russian ban on the export of fertilizer and grain, not to mention the Russian economy withering under the weight of Western sanctions, which will reduce the income of these countries from migrant remittances.
Countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen depend on grain shipments from Black Sea ports, which cannot be easily exchanged, and import from elsewhere, such as Canada, Australia, or India, not to mention shipping costs and lead time.
“There is a lot that can be done, especially if the transportation costs are very high,” Gharib said.
Ultimately, it means cutting quotas.
Now the World Food Program needs about $20 billion this year in order to feed 140 million beneficiaries," she said, adding, "It's an incredible amount."
Lynne O'Neill is an Australian writer and journalist who writes for Foreign Policy.
• The World Food Program warned that half of Afghanistan's population suffers from "food insecurity", while nine million people face famine-like conditions.
• Since the Taliban movement took power in Afghanistan last August, economic activity has stopped in that country, and US economic sanctions mean that many people do not have the money to buy anything, including food.
• It is expected that the war will affect crops and revenues, not only in Ukraine, where it is expected that the cultivation of grain will be cut in half this year, but also in countries that depend on Russian fertilizers to boost their crops.
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