This is how war in Europe is disrupting fertilizer supplies and threatening global food security

 

The war in Ukraine is having a major impact on the global supply of agricultural fertilizers, potentially undermining food security around the world.

Russia, together with Belarus, is one of the world’s largest sources of mineral fertilizers. After its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many nations, including the United States and the European Union (EU), imposed sanctions on the country.

Although there were specific exemptions in the sanctions regime to permit Russia and Belarus to continue to supply fertilizers, exports have fallen foul of other measures designed to isolate the region.

The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Risks Report ranked a looming food supply crisis as one of the top four threats facing the world, predicting that “the lagged effect of a price spike in fertilizer” would hit food production across the world in 2023.

Allowing Russian fertilizer exports was part of a deal brokered by the United Nations to permit the resumption of grain exports from Ukraine. But Russia later said that its fertilizer was being prevented from reaching customers in the global south.

Fertilizer exports have been hampered by the exclusion of Russian banks from the global SWIFT payments system coupled with the reluctance of insurers to cover shipments in a war zone. At the same time, export routes across the EU have been closed.

To read the complete article, click on the link below
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/ukraine-fertilizer-food-security/