While discussing the impact of current geopolitical events, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar highlighted that there is going to be "a major food crisis in the coming months," apart from the existing fertilizer problems associated with the Ukraine and Iran wars.
He called the situation "very, very stressful" for Global South economies, making these comments in a discussion held at the Asia Society in New York on Monday.
"As you can see, this is a major concern for us, which is that if you look at these two conflicts, the Ukraine one and then the Iran-Gulf conflict," he noted.
He saw it as an escalating chain reaction rather than a one-off scarcity.
"There will definitely be a major food crisis very soon," he stated. "But now when there is going to be a major crunch on the energy front, and then there is going to be food and fertilizers on top of that, and financing because every time there is a conflict situation, the money always goes into safe havens and not into the developing world, then the result of that has been quite stressful indeed."
He started by stating the problems of food, fuel, fertilizers, and finance as a four-pronged crisis that is destabilizing the entire world at present.
Specifically, Jaishankar highlighted an actual and tangible blockage that has come up within international food trade.
“We’re now looking at a situation where some of the major exporters of grain would not be able to export their shipments, especially to the Black Sea region,” he stated.
Furthermore, major exporters of grain will find themselves severely hindered from exporting shipments along those very same corridors.
Apart from grain supplies, Jaishankar pointed out the issue of fertilizer supply as being currently an issue rather than something that will occur in the future.
"There are already some major significant fertilizer shortages," Jaishankar commented, attributing the shortage to the two conflicts that have been going on in Ukraine and the Gulf area.
The problem of fertilizer shortages is a deferred one, as it has repercussions in terms of world food security in the future. This is because shortages of fertilizer in a certain season lead to shortages of crops in the next season.
However, Jaishankar did not solely link this coming crisis to the element of geopolitics; there was another climate-related issue that was making the disruption worse.
Due to the effects of climate phenomena, such as the super El Nino effect, there could be an extra disruption of agricultural productivity in certain areas of the world due to this conflict-related shortage.
This combination of the supply shock due to the geopolitics and the climate phenomenon, which often has very unpredictable rain, is what seems to be causing Jaishankar to make such an urgent statement about the coming months rather than some long-term risk.
Jaishankar has linked the problem to the way global financial markets usually operate when there are geopolitical conflicts taking place.
According to Jaishankar, geopolitical conflicts tend to lead to capital moving into safe markets, with capital leaving markets that are considered vulnerable, and thus the economies that have been affected are those of developing nations who are struggling with issues like energy and food security.
The situation becomes even more complex for these economies, with the cost of importing necessities like food and fuel increasing, at the exact time when there is capital leaving their economies and going elsewhere.
Jaishankar left no ambiguity about the fact that major world powers should not take the repercussions of their decisions on developing countries lightly and that it cannot be an unintended consequence of their decisions.
"Such a thing cannot happen unintentionally," he asserted. "And that is a concern that we have."
While critiquing such shortsighted geopolitical decision-making in general, Jaishankar forcefully asserted that it is essential for major world powers to consider the unintended impacts of their decisions on other countries that are distant from the very conflict.
This is not the first time that Jaishankar has sounded an alarm over a potential crisis in global food supply related to conflict situations, but the urgency has become much more pronounced than before.
As recently as June 2022, in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Jaishankar had identified a “three F crisis” involving fuel, food and fertilizers, stating that the fertilizers' shortage “will create a cascading problem down the road... till the next harvest in many countries.”
The “three F crisis” has now broadened out to include a “four F” version as finance too gets added to the list, as a result of the additional crisis generated by another conflict – the Iran-Gulf crisis – along with the one created by the Ukraine crisis years ago.
Because Jaishankar is specifically referring to “coming months” as the timeframe for when this crisis will develop, this gives the warning a sense of urgency that separates it from broader issues of food security that might be expected.
In terms of developing nations in the Global South that are already facing difficulties with their currency, energy, and debts, it is one of the biggest economic shocks to hit these nations in recent times.
