Valdai Club

On March 31, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “A World on the Edge of Hunger: How Can We Overcome the Current Food Crisis?” The moderator was Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

Oleg Kobiakov, Director of the Moscow Office of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, stressed that food security is important for all of us. He stressed that experts and the media have been talking about the food crisis for more than a year. COVID-19 has exacerbated the situation, but the events in Ukraine have made it especially dangerous. Many of the world’s poorest countries depend, to a great extent, on Russian and Ukrainian agricultural products, primarily grain. “The goal of ending world hunger as a phenomenon by 2030 is unlikely to be achieved at such a pace. Covid and the current armed conflict have set us back far,” he stressed.

Aniset Gabriel Kotchofa, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Benin to the Russian Federation and the CIS countries (2012–2016), an Associate Professor of Lomonosov Moscow State University, pointed out the danger that sanctions  against Russia pose for African countries. “Sanctions can kill the population of Africa, as it is directly dependent on supplies from Russia,” the diplomat said. “There is a need for cooperation between Russia and Africa in ensuring food security. It's time for the world to remember those things that are more important than the economy and political games."

Dairy farmer Oleg Sirota, Head of the Union of Russian Cheese Makers, was optimistic about the prospects for Russian agribusiness. According to him, the Russian agricultural industry often benefits from global tension. Profits rise with the value of grain, rapeseed, and soybeans. Russian agribusiness is very profitable and remains one of the driving forces of the economy, he stressed. In his opinion, farmers in central Russia even stand to benefit from global warming, and sanctions pose no danger to the Russian agricultural sector, because Russia, as the largest supplier of wheat and fertilizer, cannot be ejected from the market.

Nourhan ElSheikh, professor of political science at Cairo University, outlined the state of affairs in the Middle East. She noted that the food crisis has been intensifying since the 2010s. In the Middle East, among the Arab states, the three poorest countries, Syria, Yemen and Sudan, are particularly hard hit, but most of the other countries in the region are also having a hard time. Now the situation is further complicated by the "economic procedures" introduced by the US and its allies against Russia and other countries. According to the expert, these measures do little to harm the countries against which they are directed, but hurt the rest of the world, which is highly dependent on Russian wheat.