Looming threat of famine and perils beyond

The spectre of a famine in large swathes of the planet is all set to unfold. With Russia turning its back to the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI), the ominous prospect now looks all the more real. The grain deal brokered by Turkish Presdident, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the UN was extended thrice before ---the latest one until July 17 last. Now Russia has refused to extend the agreement further. All because, under a parallel agreement Russia's own food and fertiliser exports were supposed to be restriction-free but it faces problems linked to the sanctions. Well, Russian food and fertiliser can move past the restrictions but payments, insurance and shipping for Moscow's own agricultural exports have been either delayed or held up by the US- and the EU-enforced sanctions, complains Russia.
To offset the looming threat of famine stalking most vulnerable areas in Africa where 125 million people face extreme food shortage, the BSGI was most essential. Between 2018-2020, Africa imported wheat worth $3.7 billion and $1.4 billion from Russia and Ukraine respectively. Wheat from the two countries thus contributed respectively to 32 per cent and 12 per cent of the total African import. According to the United Nations, 32 countries including some of the poorest and most vulnerable like Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Lebanon depend on Russia and Ukraine for more than half of their wheat imports.
On its part, Russia demanded that its state-owned agricultural bank, Rosselkhozbank be reconnected to the Swift fast payment system, when all Russian banks have remained cut off from the system since June, 2022. This would have made the agreement meaningful. If restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance act as a barrier, Russia's demand is certainly not misplaced. But the US and the EU first put forward an alternative proposal for opening up a subsidiary of the agricultural bank by Russia. Moscow rejected it on the ground that it would take too much time to serve its purpose. Then the Western alliance came up with its second proposal for processing payment for Russian food and fertiliser through JP Morgan Chase, a US bank. Obviously, Russia could not accept it. Thus matters came to a stalemate, leading to Russia's exit from the treaty.
This means that millions of tonnes of sunflower oil, maze, barley and wheat will remain trapped at Ukrainian ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa and Pivdennyi as it did before when 20 million tonnes of grain meant for export could not be shipped with the breaking out of the war. But following the signing of the BSGI, 33 million tonnes of grain from Ukraine reached the intended destinations in several African and Middle-eastern countries without hassle, triggering a sharp decline in prices by 22 per cent from the earlier record high grain price. Under the grain deal, the World Food Programme (WFP) shipped 625,000 tonnes of grain and it procured more than half of its grain from Ukraine to continue its aid operation in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Yemen in 2022.
This process of feeding the populations in war-torn countries where big players incite the conflict through proxy war will come to a halt. The alternative is starvation for millions or exodus of refugees on hazardous routes. At the root of their tragic plight lies the competition for furthering the spheres of global influence. But it is the present human civilisation's greatest curse and shame because it is primarily man-made. Like the environmental and ecological degradation, it is now exploding in bizarre and tragic forms.
It seems that the human race is desperate to dig its own grave. Instead of attending to the call of healing environmental wounds caused by this so-called superior species' suicidal acts, it is pursuing geopolitical manoeuvres enough to divide the entire world into two rival camps. On the face of it, Russia looks to be an aggressor but the main player behind the puppet show pretends to be a non-committal rescuer who is just standing by the victim of an armed aggression with the sole purpose of advancing its own agenda.
Today the entire world is paying through its nose for the highly calculated move for expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) at a time when the world was yet to recover from the post-pandemic trauma---social, economic and humanitarian. At a time when the planet is in turmoil with heat waves baking several European countries, forest fires engulfing vast areas of greenery and floods of unprecedented order sweeping away human settlements and inundating cities and towns with no such experience, civilised people needed to do some soul-searching to get to the root of such convulsions of Nature.
No, these phenomena have failed to bring the people in power back to their senses. The geopolitics they are pursuing to enhance their money and muscle power could not be nastier at this critical time when the human species finds itself on the crossroads. Not only does the disruption of supply chain of foods open up the possibility of a famine, it has the potential to bring the genie out of the bottle. That would be the worst to happen to the human race because a war on a global scale will wipe it out from the face of the planet.

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