Food as the “Silent Weapon”: Russia’s Gains and Ukraine’s Losses
Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused the greatest military-related disruption to global agricultural markets in at least a century. Ukraine’s agricultural sector has been a major front in Russia’s war since February 2022, and the primary purpose of Russia’s targeting of Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure is likely to undercut a main source of Ukraine’s income.
Ukraine’s GDP contracted by more than 29 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, and the value of agriculture as a proportion of Ukraine’s GDP was 39 percent lower in 2022 than 2021.
The global disruptions to the agricultural market due to Ukraine’s diminished production and exports have been stark: world food prices reached all-time nominal highs in March 2022, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization Food Price Index. In 2022, 258 million people suffered from acute food insecurity, an all-time high, according to the Global Report on Food Crises. At the same time, the cost of addressing these challenges also soared due to concurrent shocks in the global energy and fertilizer markets brought on by Russia’s war. For example, the cost of the delivery of humanitarian assistance also peaked due to the increased cost of food and fuel for operations. At the same time, for countries hoping to address domestic food insecurity with domestic agricultural production, the increased cost of fertilizer became a limiting factor. Likewise, countries dealing with the high price of food imports, high prices of agricultural inputs, and high levels of food insecurity also had less fiscal space for social programs following the Covid-19 pandemic, which drained national budgets.
If Ukraine’s depleted agricultural GDP has been a boon to Russia, the rising global food insecurity that has resulted from Russia’s war has also been beneficial: Ukraine’s diminished exports have created openings for Russia, another major global agricultural exporter, to make up for Ukraine’s losses, with Russia using its agricultural exports as a source of soft power. In early 2022, Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, declared food to be Russia’s “silent weapon.” By August 2023, President Vladimir Putin declared Moscow’s intention to “replace Ukrainian grain” with Russian grain, particularly to “needy countries.”
Since 2022, data show increases in Russia’s production and exports and decreases in Ukraine’s production and exports of key agricultural commodities. However, the specific regions to which Russia has exported more, and to which Ukraine has exported less, are unclear. Likewise, trends in Russia’s fertilizer exports have been difficult to discern. Using the best data available, this white paper assesses the change in Ukraine and Russia’s agricultural exports and trading partners for wheat and corn, as well as Russia’s fertilizer exports, since February 2022.
The Impact of the War on Ukraine’s Crop Production
The war has had direct and indirect impacts on agricultural production in Ukraine. The occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia accounted for about 21 percent of wheat, 17 percent of barley, and 19 percent of sunflower seed produced in Ukraine between 2016 and 2020, while very little corn is grown in the occupied areas. Analysis by NASA Harvest, NASA’s Global Food Security and Agriculture Consortium, estimates that the amount of abandoned cropland in Ukraine in 2023 due to the war is equivalent to about 7.5 percent of total cropland in the country. In addition, the war has increased the costs of transporting grain and other agricultural products to export markets. Most of these costs have been absorbed by Ukrainian producers in the form of lower prices, which has reduced profitability of crops such as wheat and corn. As a result, Ukraine has planted and harvested fewer crops. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that harvested area for wheat, corn (maize), and barley for 2023 is down 32 percent, 27 percent, and 37 percent, respectively, from 2021 levels.[1] Sunflower area is also down 15 percent, while the combined area for soybeans and rapeseed has actually increased 21 percent. However, net area for the six crops is down 19.5 percent over the past two years. For 2024, Ukrainian producers are expected to cut corn-planted areas further but continue to increase areas with oilseeds, especially soybeans, according to survey results from a recent survey from the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.
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