SPIEF-22: FAO points out Russia’s place in providing global food security

“The topic of food security is as old as the world is. Humanity has faced this problem all over its existence, but it has always found solutions to overcome hunger. The last of these crucial constructive decisions was the Green Revolution that occurred in 1950s and 1960s, when due to the success of breeding, new agricultural technologies, wide use of fertilizers, crop yields sharply rose,” Andrey Fursenko, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation, said at the opening of the special session dedicated to this issue within the framework of the XXV St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

“It seemed they had overcome this barrier. But even then, it was already clear and, by the way, Borlaug (Normal Borlaug, an American agronomist and breeder famous as “the Father of the Green Revolution” – ed.) also warned that there were problems that would worsen. It is farmland degradation, climate change, fresh water shortage.”

“New major challenges, which are related to the application of economic sanctions, have emerged this year… Food price index has reached its historic high,” Fursenko concluded. “It is not enough to raise the alarm, we have to advance a constructive solution.” 

Russia has increased the export production of its agro-industrial complex by 16 percent, Viktoria Abramchenko, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and curator of the agricultural sector in the government, said. She gave an example that in the Republic of Korea the volume of food supplied was 19 percent more than in the same period last year, in Belarus – 33 percent more, in India – 3.6 times more.

The growth in agricultural row materials and food supply abroad, as Ms Abramchenko highlighted, is taking place in spite of sanctions slingshots and obstacles, such as air and water blockade of Russian cargo, interruption and restriction of the functioning of the scheme of international and interbank payments.

 “Russia does not only feed itself, but also key countries in terms of population,” Viktoria Abramchenko noted. She highlighted Russia’s special role as a donor country, which has a sense of responsibility to the population of the entire planet – the Earth’s population is growing more and more and it will be necessary to feed it. 

At the same time, Russian citizens do not need to worry about food shortages, the Deputy Minister assured. The country is more than adequately self- sufficient in basic food – grain, fat-and-oil products, meat and fish. These very commodity items are the key ones for the Russian export.

In her closing remarks addressed to FAO, Viktoria Abramchenko, reminding that in 1945 FAO was established to fight hunger, made a suggestion. “I call upon my colleagues at the UN and FAO to establish an international “Red Cross” for food that would solve the problems of illegal sanctions, which have paralyzed logistics, and that would overcome the consequences of the adopted restrictions for mutual payments between countries and that would ultimately ensure an equal access for all countries to the food market.

“There are few sectors in which Russia is represented in such a large volume as in mineral fertilizers,” said Andrey Guryev, president of the Russian Association of Fertilizer Producers (RAPU). “Especially in global. Russia, together with Belarus, accounts for about 25 percent of the total world trade in mineral fertilizers. If you add China, then the figure is about 35-40 percent. China is not on the market now; it has chosen to close itself. Today, Russia and Belarus were closed through sanctions. That means 40 percent of the world fertilizer trade is absent on the market. We, Russia and Belarus, supplied mineral fertilizers to more than 100 countries, and about 65 percent of mineral fertilizers to developing countries.” 

“If we take 40 million tonnes of all fertilizers that we export every year, they allow providing about 100 million tonnes of crops. If we count by 150 kg – the average of wheat a person eats – then, the interruption of Russian supplies of fertilizers could increase the number of people suffering from hunger around the world by 500 million. This is the crisis we may face,” the RAFP Head said citing the results of calculations made by the experts.

“We will have 10 billion people on earth by 2050. How will we feed them?” Andrey Guryev said echoing Viktoria Abramchenko’s words about Russia’s social responsibility on a global scale and calling to recognize at the UN level that fertilizers are humanitarian goods that should not be subjected to sanctions.  

“I could not help noting that Viktoria Abramchenko determined in her speech the main parameters of security: military, food and technological security. Here, as a representative of FAO, I would latch onto food security, because, in our opinion, this is the cornerstone,” Oleg Kobiakov, Director of the FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation, began his speech at the forum with these words.

“Getting daily bread has been the primary task of humans, just as of any living creatures. And providing enough nutritious, wholesome food is a guarantee of health and of a fulfilling life, as well as of receiving education, which makes it possible to break into the labor market, receive decent remuneration and, thus, ensure a fulfilling life for yourself and your children.

Humankind is slowly moving towards the goal of prosperity, but, unfortunately, this movement is uneven. Global catastrophes such as epidemics, climate extremes, and, of course, armed conflicts constantly set us back. Now the military and political developments of recent times have overshadowed the Sustainable Development Agenda and the goals that humanity deemed to achieve by 2030.

Among these goals, a special place is occupied by SDG-2 – the elimination of hunger and ensuring food security. Where are we now on this path?

In the last pre-COVID year (2019), there were 690 million people in the world who were constantly hungry; about one billion more could not provide themselves with good nutrition, that is, a sufficient amount, in addition to dietary calories, of micronutrients, vitamins. Another billion could not financially afford themselves a healthy diet, a balance of fruits, vegetables, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, dietary fibre.  Consequently, three billion of the nearly eight billion people on the planet do not have proper nourishment.”

Oleg Kobiakov stressed that the pandemic has thrown additionally almost 120 million into the famine zone, and in 2020, 811 million were already suffering from hunger around the globe. There are a number of negative factors that undermine food security today. FAO believes, and this assessment is shared by all the organizations of the UN development system, that armed conflicts have been, are and will continue to be the main cause of hunger.

The Report on the World Food Crisis published by the UN and its partners sounds the alarm since the number of people who found themselves in the zone of acute hunger approached 200 million, this is an increase of 40 million people in one year only. Of these two hundred million, according to the “weight distribution” of factors, armed conflicts are to blame for the acute starvation of 139 million people. The second most important factor is extreme climatic events. Up to 39 million people have found themselves in the hunger zone due to floods, droughts, typhoons, cyclones, invasion of pests, and climate change, caused mainly by anthropogenic activities.

Finally, the last driver of hunger are economic shocks caused by the previous factors, as well as the deregulation of the world economic and financial system and attempts to fight the crisis using inflation-monetary methods. These regulators, or rather, deregulators, are to blame for throwing another 30 million people into the hunger zone last year.

FAO, as a development organization focused on technical assistance, is interested in returning the situation with food availability to normal as soon as possible. Even now, the crisis that arose with the export of Ukrainian grain, of Russian grain and Russian fertilizers is being solved by the UN system in a comprehensive manner. For example, FAO in its assessments of the place of countries in the global food production and trade does not isolate, does not separate Ukraine and Russia, because for the rest of the world the crisis associated with the supply of Russian and Ukrainian grain is of a general character. 

Now there are calls, including from Kyiv, to expel Russia from international organizations, including the FAO. However, you cannot erase Russia from the map with a rubber, because it is so woven into the international system of the division of labor, into the fabric of humanity, and Russia’s role is so great, including in the world food security, energy security and other types of security – since security is indivisible – that this is simply not possible.

The idea articulated by Victoria Abramchenko of ​​creating an arbitration food-centered body is interesting, but FAO is still acting within its mandate providing technical expertise, monitoring and assessment, which is entrusted to the Organization by its member countries. We carry out monitoring, publish a large number of statistical publications based on the collected data, and develop recommendations, in particular, related to agri-food and trade policies. Among the recommendations on how to overcome the current food crisis, we can name the following one: analyze the policy of sanctions and, if possible, stop applying them, as well as other restrictive measures in trade.

FAO is a cooperation organization, a “territory of reason”. Our today’s dialogue, which refers to Russia’s role in ensuring global food security, is probably a guarantee that we are on the right track leading to return to normal, to constructive cooperation between all member-states for the sake of sustainable development and prosperity of humankind,” Oleg Kobiakov concluded.