Attilio Barbieri March 29, 2022
When corn sowing begins in the spring, the risk of famine increases, which could disrupt the food market. Not only in Europe. Among other things, the unknown factor of drought weighs heavily on our fields, after a winter that has left Italy with a third less rain, but with rainfall practically halved in the north. Serious supply shortages, multiplied by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, are preparing a crisis that could overwhelm 100 million people, as Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco explained in his speech to Economy and Society, what a future for democratic capitalism was organized by Verlag Il Mulino and Eur Culture for Rome. The food crisis contributes to the negative effects of the pandemic and risks unleashing devastating economic and social processes. The invasion of Ukraine “by Russia, explains the head of Palazzo Koch, “endangers the international economic and financial structure created at the end of the Cold War and multilateral cooperation itself. This point makes it difficult to foresee the consequences ».
CLEAR WAY EU
The EU’s decision to free up another 4 million hectares of cereals in Europe, including 200,000 in Italy, can only mitigate the impact of a widespread shortage. In our case, according to Coldiretti’s estimates, the green light from Brussels “should allow us to increase the production of cereals needed to reduce foreign dependency by 15 million quintals”. But the departure was “slowed and delayed due to the lack of rain needed for tilling the land and germinating the crops”. Not to mention that almost every third farm is forced to work with a negative income due to the cost explosion from +170% fertilizers to +90% feed to +129% for diesel. And the battle for wheat begins under the great unknown of speculation, which greatly affects the price of food commodities. It’s hard to say how the current campaign may end. Last year we were forced to import 64% of bread wheat and 44% of pasta needs, not to mention imports of corn and soy, essential for animal nutrition, with the national crops they cover only 53% each and 27% of Italian needs. “In a few months, Coldiretti always emphasizes, “the wheat harvest will begin, which will be sown in autumn in Italy, where, according to Istat, 500,596 hectares of soft wheat for bread are estimated, with an increase of 0.5%, while the surface of durum wheat Wheat shows a slight decrease of 1.4% to a total of 1,211,304 hectares, although in this first analysis the delays in sowing due to unfavorable climatic conditions weigh, which could lead to an upward revision of the figure.
CORN TRAIN
On the other hand, news of the first shipment of thousands of tons of corn from Ukraine by train bound for the western borders was positive, while the country’s Black Sea ports remain blocked due to the Russian invasion. Important news for Italy, which buys corn for over 6 million tons on foreign markets, coming mainly from Hungary (1.85 million tons), Slovenia (780 thousand tons) and Ukraine (770 thousand tons). But third world countries are more at risk. According to US sources, corroborated by French President Macron’s comments, a global famine would be inevitable in a period between 12 and 18 months, which would be difficult to counter even with the contingency food security plan proposed by the tenant of the Elysée in Brussels. The countries of North Africa and the Middle East, which are almost entirely dependent on grain imports from Russia and Ukraine, are highly exposed to the risk of food shortages.
