Diversify our food basket

A GLOBAL food crisis has been happening over the past two decades that has been caused by four main issues: high oil prices in 2007-2008; a surge in demand from emerging economies after the turn of the millennium; natural disasters such as droughts, floods, and storms in major grain-producing countries (eg Argentina, Australia, China, Russia, Ukraine) in 2010-2011 due to extreme weather conditions; the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on supply chains from 2020 to 2022; and the current Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Russia and Ukraine are the two top grain exporting countries in the world. The conflict has severely affected the production, trade, transport, and pricing of food products such as wheat, corn, sunflower seeds, and vegetable oil.