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The Yemen conflict, underway since early 2015, has led to an ongoing, unprecedented humanitarian emergency. Food needs far exceed current consumption levels, with 3.5 million pregnant or breastfeeding women and children under 5 suffering from acute malnutrition and up to 19 million people affected by food insecurity in 2022.

The economies of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay), major agricultural exporters still recovering from the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, have benefited from the rise in international prices accompanying the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With the war disrupting global supplies, the net exporting countries of the region have the opportunity to increase their exports.

Over the past two years, the impacts of ongoing regional conflicts, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian-Ukraine war have drastically weakened the world’s already inadequate, unsustainable food systems. This confluence of factors has induced in supply chain disruptions and high and volatile prices for food, fertilizer, and fuel, and the result has been the third global food crisis in less than two decades.

The sanctions imposed by the European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries on Russia and Belarus following Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine included restrictions on banking, trade, technology transfers, and specific individuals. These came on top of earlier sanctions on both countries – on Russia, in response to its 2014 annexation of Crimea, and on Belarus, in response to human rights violations in 2020 and its forced grounding of Ryanair flight 4798 to seize a dissident journalist in 2021.

The October FAO Food Price Index remained largely unchanged from September, with rising cereal prices balanced by declines in the other commodity groups. The overall Food Price Index has fallen by almost 15 percent from March 2022 but remains 2 percent above its October 2021 levels.