Techno-Nationalism

Chapter 23Food Security and Techno-Nationalism

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 exposed the fragility and vulnerabilities of the world’s food supply system and intensified both food insecurity and food-competition. More broadly, the war hastened the international community’s transition away from the cost-driven trade model and moved it toward a geo-economic trade approach. Already, the COVID pandemic had exposed the vulnerabilities of over-reliance on single countries and single sources for supply chains.

Just before the war, Russia and Ukraine were the breadbasket of much of the world. In 2020, the two countries together accounted for 30% of global wheat exports, 28% of maize exports, 23% of barley exports and more than 50% of trade in sunflower oil—a cooking staple used everywhere.¹

As Russia blockaded food exports from Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, millions of tonnes of grain were withheld from global circulation. From February to March 2022, the price of wheat jumped by more than 80%² and the G7 nations declared the war a global ‘hunger crisis’ in the making, especially for less developed countries.³

The Ukraine war exacerbated an already dire situation in Africa: Somalia, Libya and Tunisia received up to 80% of their grain from Ukraine and, going forward, could ill afford the consequences of a protracted war.⁴ At the time of Russia’s invasion, some 23 million people in Africa already suffered from extreme hunger. At the time of this writing, an extended drought ...