How Putin’s war could disrupt global food supplies (Trade Talks Podcast)

Trade Talks Podcast interviewed senior research fellow Joseph Glauber who explains the humanitarian crisis that looms if war cuts wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia. Fall wheat is planted in the fall and harvested in the summer. Ukrainian farmers are in the fields in April and May, but now soldiers are there. Tanks are rolling through. Labor is a concern; will there be fuel? The window is short on this. We have a couple of months at best. The second problem is can crops get shipped? Thirty percent of last year’s crops are in silos, ports are blocked, rail lines have been cut by troops. The crops that are harvested, what will happen to them? It is not just wheat; it is also fertilizers and the things that go into it like potassium. Production was down last year even before the Ukraine crisis; prices have been at their highest since 2008 and stocks were at about 63 days in the stockpile. Glauber revisits the 2008 food prices crisis. He says, “If you look at estimates done at the time, estimates showed that export restrictions made things worse for supply and demand.” The political implications? “North Africa consumes a lot of wheat, and they are paying much higher prices. In 2008, some governments tried to subsidize the cost of wheat, for other places prices just went up. The Arab Spring had a lot to do with food prices.”