Grain shortfall from Ukraine war exacerbates food insecurity in Africa (rfi)

RFi (France) published an article stating that to cover wheat shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, African countries are looking to other sources or trying to use local-based alternatives in order to provide bread each day. However, this is also causing a spike in food prices. “What is coming immediately is an increase in price, which will impact the government’s fiscal budget. This means an increase in price on wheat and other products and impacts poor households too,” says research fellow Kibrom Abay. “While Egypt has enough wheat until September, the government is trying to source from other places such as India, Argentina, Kazakhstan, and Romania.” Egypt is the world’s largest wheat buyer. “In Egypt, the wheat consumption is almost twice the global average. The impact of the shock is likely to have a varying impact across different countries on their capacity to absorb these type of shocks,” says Abay. “What we can expect to see in Yemen is likely to differ from what we expect to see in Egypt and Sudan. “I think the best solution in this type of crisis is to allow commodities to move freely as much as possible so that the big shock we see in other markets cannot completely disrupt the whole food system.”