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Over the past decade, the world’s food systems have faced multiple significant shocks, from the COVID-19 pandemic and the impacts of the Russia-Ukraine conflict to numerous climate change-driven natural disasters and instances of civil unrest and political instability. These challenges have disrupted markets, driven up food and fertilizer prices and price volatility, reduced food availability and accessibility, and pushed millions of people into hunger.

The FAO Food Price Index continued to decline in March, dropping by 2.1 percent from the previous month. The Index has fallen by almost 21 percent since March 2022.

The Russia-Ukraine war has focused global attention on the key economic roles that those countries play as major exporters of agricultural commodities. Over 2019-2021, they accounted for 12% of global agricultural trade on a kilocalorie basis, with a combined market share of 34% for wheat, 26% for barley, 17% for maize, and 75% for sunflower oil. The war has scrambled this picture, with Ukraine’s exports falling dramatically, and Russia’s falling, then recovering.  

Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine has inflicted devastating impacts that continue to mount more than a year after the invasion. As of September 2022, even before Russia’s winter bombing campaign, the total damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure was an estimated $127 billion, equal to 64% of the country’s 2021 GDP. More than 14 million Ukrainians have left their homes, including more than 8 million refugees.

The real global price of food surged in 2022, reaching well above the previous peak seen in the 2011 food price crisis. While prices declined somewhat in July 2022, they remain alarmingly high, and some countries have enacted policies, such as export bans, to try to rein in prices on their domestic markets.