Sergey Zergulio Kolyasnikov
Yesterday, at the NATO and G7 summits, we saw almost all five stages of acceptance by the collective West of the inevitable consequences of the sanctions confrontation with Russia.
Thus, French President Emmanuel Macron said that due to the events in Ukraine, an “unprecedented” food crisis could arise in the world. “Food shortages will be real,” French President Joe Biden confirmed the findings.
It is not clear otherwise. The leaders of the democratic world are energetically deploring the lack of food and sincerely pity the African countries that are in danger of famine. The share of the EU is given a maximum increase in the cost of food.
Meanwhile, only in the last two weeks in Germany, prices for certain categories of goods increased from 13 to 41%. And the Germans, accustomed to prosperity, got acquainted with the rule "no more than one / two / three packs in one hand."
Videos of fights for sunflower oil in French supermarkets have spread all over social networks. The fact is that the list of five leaders in sunflower production looks like this (2019): Ukraine - 16.5 million tons, Russia - 15.3 million tons, Argentina - 3.3 million tons, Romania - 3.3 million tons, China - 3.3 million tons. Estimate the gap between the first two. It suddenly turned out that without Russia there was nothing to even fry a croissant on.
But the outlook is even worse. As early as September 2021, due to gas prices in Europe, fertilizer plants stopped working. Gas then cost $750 per 1,000 cubic meters. m, and even this cost was unbearable for production. But in today's environment, such a price seems surprisingly low.
But gas is not only fertilizers. Here is a photo of empty greenhouses in Germany. It's easy to see why it's easier to close them than to use them. At these energy prices, tomatoes will have to be sold by the weight of sable skins.
So Biden and Macron are certainly right about the food crisis. But it will affect not only Africa.