SPECIAL REPORT: With Russia and Ukraine exporting much of the world’s wheat and maize, food security has become one of the most pressing international issues to arise from the crisis. Claire Hamlett brings together a comprehensive range of analyses to explain how players within the agricultural industries are seeking to take advantage of the uncertainty.

The war in Ukraine has sparked fears of its impacts on the global food supply. Ukraine accounts for about 10 per cent of international wheat exports and about a fifth of maize exports. As Russia continues to shell the country, it seems unlikely that there will be anyone to harvest, let alone ship, the crops this year. 

In the face of the crisis, other nations have been trying to figure out how to make themselves less dependent on agricultural imports. While some farming organisations think the solution is to expand the amount of land used for food production, some experts are warning against that approach and arguing instead for shrinking the meat and dairy industries, as well as the biofuels industry, to free up more land for feeding people directly.

The National Farmers’ Union of Scotland has called for ecological areas of land to be turned over to food production. It argues that “a moratorium on current Scottish support scheme rules that take land out of production could temporarily release an area of land equivalent to 25,000 rugby pitches to grow cereals, nitrogen-fixing protein crops such as peas and beans or grass and forage for livestock.” 

In response, George Monbiot wrote a column comparing the suggestion to throwing out our climate commitments in order to increase our domestic energy security through fracking, as some Tory MPs have been urging. He explains how we can reduce the land we need to produce enough food, including an end to growing crops to burn for fuel, and cutting out meat and dairy. 

“If we were serious about reducing the pressure on global food supply, we would also switch to a plant-based diet,” he writes. “Were everyone to do so, the agricultural land needed to feed the world would decline by 75 per cent. Even though our direct consumption of grain would rise, the total arable area would fall by 19 per cent, because animals would no longer need to be fed on crops.”

Some farming groups have similarly been calling for Europe’s sustainable food Farm to Fork strategy to be scrapped so Europe can ramp up its food production. Experts have argued that this is a cynical ploy for farming lobby groups to reassert their objections against Farm to Fork. German researcher Dr Guy Pe’er echoed Monbiot’s view in an interview with Food Navigator. “If the issue is food security, why are they talking about [animal] feed?” he said and pointed out that growing crops for feed and fuel account for the use of more than 70 per cent of agricultural land. “We should therefore better use the resources we have for more food and less feed and fuel.”

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In an open letter to the EU Commission, Pe’er and two other researchers also write: “Imports from Ukraine to the EU are often used as livestock feed to produce animal products (dairy, meat), much of which is destined for export out of the EU. In times of scarcity, the key question should therefore be how to achieve an optimal allocation of food crops, to ensure humans’ basic needs are prioritised over less essential uses - both in Europe and globally.”

In a detailed blog post on the implications of the war for Europe’s food security, French thinktank IDDRI argues that right now the issue is not one of supply but of economics: “The crops blocked in Ukraine have not been destroyed, and the buyers who were to receive these deliveries have turned to other suppliers.” In Europe, the resulting increase in the price of certain crops is hitting livestock farmers hard. “[T]hese farms absorb 60 per cent of cereals and nearly 70 per cent of oilseed consumed in Europe in the form of concentrates, a large proportion of which is imported from world markets.” What is at stake “is Europe's ability to maintain an intensive livestock industry that is competitive in the face of international competition and able to provide consumers with low-cost animal products. Because of its imports of soybeans and sunflowers to feed industrial livestock, the EU is now a net importer of calories: it depends on the rest of the world for 10 per cent of its consumption. This is in a context where the consumption of animal proteins is almost double that required to cover our nutritional needs.” 

To resolve the issue, IDDRI recommends “A 40 per cent reduction in the consumption of animal products, and a transition to low-fodder and self-sufficient livestock farming (i.e. fed on European grasslands and legumes)” which would “make it possible: (1) to move the EU from being a net importer to a net exporter of calories; (2) to reduce our carbon footprint and contribute to restoring the biodiversity of European agrosystems; (3) to reduce our dependence on natural gas and fossil fuels for fertiliser production; (4) and finally to make room on our plates for essential - and under-consumed - foods such as fruit and vegetables.”

The authors of the open letter to the EU Commission suggest a number of actions that can be implemented in the short- to medium-term to safeguard Europe’s food supply without sacrificing environmental and climate commitments. These include scaling back “subsidies in support of non-essential, intensive land-use. Primarily, we call for the urgent reconsideration of the support for intensive livestock production, particularly ‘coupled payments’ which support intensive animal production that are known to be harmful to the climate and environment, as well as subsidies of biofuels. Instead, the focus should be on supporting circular agriculture, meaning a) using fertile land to grow crops for human consumption, b) feeding animals with waste streams and on marginal lands, and c) switching toward more plant-based consumption.” They also urge the EU to “[c]all on European citizens to reduce their consumption of animal products. To shift toward more sustainable consumption practices on a longer-term, complement the Farm to Fork Strategy with more effective instrument mixes to change dietary behaviour, including food education, fiscal policy interventions, sustainable procurement, and food environment interventions.”

The reasons to move away from animal agriculture were already clear and numerous. Putin’s attack on Ukraine only adds to the urgency to do so.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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