 Hardly a day goes by when we do not read news about food inflation rising prices in various parts of the world Countries in Africa are among the worst hit of course But even countries like India or for that matter the United States and the United Kingdom are being strongly affected now The West's tendency has been to blame all this on Russia for the war and of course Russia has counted saying that it's a far More complicated picture. We'll be discussing all this and more on this episode of mapping for lines We are joined by Prabir Burkayasar. Prabir, so at the outset Let's go straight into the issue in terms of what the reasons for the food crisis are We know that Russia Russia and Ukraine together massive contribution to wheat exports We know that Russia has a very important contributor to fertilizer exports again sunflower oil from the region Also, maybe one of the most important Exports many many countries whose primary imports are from Russia and Ukraine now The western countries are saying that this is all because Russia started the war. It's blocked everything It's a single reason for the food crisis. But is this really the truth? Could you just maybe take us to these narratives? You know, there are two or three elements to this price rise that we are talking about One is of course the sheer availability of food grains if the food grains do not come into the market The price is going to rise the rich countries can still buy even if they have a food inflation in their home countries Like the European Union United Kingdom, but at the same time their ability to then buy at a higher price is more than that of the poor country So that's one element of it which is we are seeing that there is less food in the market or food grains in the market and Therefore we are seeing a price rise and that price rise of course is affecting countries Completely in a different way depending on the purchasing power and what you've talked about particularly for Africa and West Asia The other part of it is they're highly dependent on Russian and Ukrainian wheat particularly Russian wheat and Therefore they if the private wheat doesn't come into the market or it's not accessible to them They're they're going to see a problem of how to feed their people So that is one part of it Of course, there's a larger picture which I'm not going into the structural imbalance where people have shifted more to Export crops than food grains and this is what has happened under the IMF World Bank Policies for quite some time. I'm not getting into that at the moment Just looking at what the immediate causes are the argument that is being given is Russia is blockading Ukraine's wheat exports and the key issue here is Odessa Now the other part of the story, which you don't get to hear from the Western media Reports is that Ukraine has mined the poor today support so the you Russian Navy cannot approach Odessa from the sea Now if it is mine and there are about 50 60 ships already stuck in the only support which cannot leave It is not because there is a naval locket, but there are also mines So the question is how do you negotiate export from Ukraine using the only support? Any other form of exports using to rail or using for instance trucks The quantities are too huge for it to be moved from Ukraine and to other countries and there's an additional problem They're more moved by rail than the rail lines in Ukraine Can reach the port provided the go via Belarus without changing or unloading the wheat and again loading another train Because of the railway gauges in Western Europe or in some parts of Eastern Europe like Poland are different from that that is being used in Ukraine And the only access they have then is to Estonia, I think, but it is to Belarus, which is also something which is at war with Ukraine So given this that it is not there doesn't seem to be any other solution but to allow exports from Ukraine Ukraine by Odessa And Ukraine has to agree therefore to de-mine the harbor and this is something Turkey has proposed to be the middle guy in that sense Talk it over with both and see whether Russia agrees which it has and whether Ukraine will agree Ukraine has said no we not agree because if you de-mine then of course Russian Navy can come in again and we don't trust it So that is the deadlock over Ukrainian exports. It's not so much of Russian blockade as the US would claim But they will say the cause is the war, that's all And then if the cause is the war Russia will turn and I will say the cause is the NATO expansion And we get into what would be the infinite regress of who caused what But the proximate cause, the immediate cause is that Ukraine is not allowing the export of Ukrainian wheat And therefore that is one of the problems that we are facing The second of course is Russia. Russia as you have said is in fact a bigger exporter of wheat than Ukraine is And it's one of the bigger suppliers in the region that we are talking about which is West Asia and North Africa particularly Here the problem that is there is the Russian ships are being sanctioned. They say we have not sanctioned wheat. Yes, that is correct They have not sanctioned wheat, but they have sanctioned essentially Export through Russian ships, no insurance. And if you don't get insurance you can't export, you can't, your ships can't go anywhere And they've also barred access to a number of ports for Russian ships So other ships cannot be used because they need essentially the banking channels, the ability to transact business They at the western or large number of international shipping companies would need access to Russian bank transactions Which because of the swift bank and various banks of the Russian banks, that is going to be difficult So we have the financial sanctions and the insurance sanctions which are a part of the sixth tranche now hitting Russia And therefore also hitting its exports of wheat Now Russia is not that dependent on income above from wheat exports because after all, European Union is still forced to buy gas and oil from Russia Given that as a scenario and this is going to continue, the oil sanctions are only going to hit after six months They don't have an immediate problem. In fact, they're making more money from exports today than they were earlier It's about 6 to 10 billion dollars is their additional income from exports per month at the moment So they're not feeling a prop pinch on that. But the problem is that wheat, how does it get go to other countries and the where are the ships, where is the insurance And how does Russia then negotiate new insurance to cover the risks of war, which is what now it could be argued is And how do the other ports countries now negotiate the transaction of wheat, that's the main issue And unfortunately on that, the blanket assertions, what you get is really blanket assertions from the West No, no, Russia is the culprit. All of it is Russia's fault and no attempt to address the questions with the African Union has raised Makisal, who was recently in this conversation with Ukraine discussing how to export wheat from Russia No attempt to address the problem they're raising. While at the moment, we could be seeing food grain prices and the rate of this rising It is 60 to 80% higher than last year and it could reach 100% more and at that cost we're going to see large-scale starvation and much faster increase in poverty Across Africa as well as, for instance, South Asia where also the prices of food grains are rising Maybe rising due to different reasons, not the question of the important export directly, but the prices are rising here. We have an 8% per month food inflation right now in the country So all of this is really playing out in a way that's going to see a huge increase in starvation, malnutrition and particularly affecting the most vulnerable The children, the women all over the world, particularly in Africa and large parts of West Asia as well as other parts of the world Absolutely. And from here, finally, very quickly, like you said, does this also demonstrate the complete failure of international organizations of fora in this regard? Because we're seeing a global food crisis, like you said, African Union leaders, they were in Russia, they took a stance against sanctions against Russia as well But there seems to be no forum where countries can come together or influence, even on a matter as important as food I think that's a bigger issue that can we have a restructuring the world trade in a way that countries are able then to handle the fact that they have not imposed sanctions But if Europe, Western Europe and the United States impose a sanction, the financial system and the services systems, financial services like insurance, for example, all of these become very difficult for others to handle So it's a handful of Western countries who are in the sanctions as war mode They say Ukraine war is Russia. We are doing sanctions that is not war. We're just trying to teach Russia a lesson so that they don't do this again Of course, who's going to teach any lesson for them when they invade Iraq or the invade Afghanistan or Libya? Those questions of course are not to be raised because as you know, these are not democracies, only countries that America proves are democracies as we've seen in, for instance, in Latin America right now But leaving that out, there is the other issue I think which we need to touch upon, which is the issue of fertilizers Now you know food is of course an immediate crisis, but the fertilizers is the other part which is a bigger long-term crisis because your food output will drop precipitately Particularly across a huge arc of the world where they cannot get access to fertilizers from Belarus and Russia and these are phosphatic fertilizers The di-ammonium phosphate, that as it is called widely, that those are critical to for instance, Indian agriculture, Asian agriculture, African agriculture Who import large amounts of the fertilizers from Belarus and Russia who are very big suppliers in the national market If that drops out of the market, prices again, fertilizers go up, but the effect of all of this is going to be much larger on the output of agriculture for the future as well Is we are talking of not something for a month or two months, you are really talking about a year down the line and you are also talking about the other input which is oil which is diesel, which is used in agriculture widely So all of these are having indirect effect on agriculture, but the issue that you have raised is how do countries now who are not interested in sanctions, who want trade with Russia, with Belarus, for their survival How do they negotiate a scenario where the West seems to have a disproportionate advantage in the ability to inflict a whole range of sanctions which are extraterritorial It is between trade between Russia and Africa. So it is not that they are imposing sanctions about what they are importing or what they are exporting That's not what Europe or the United States is doing. It is actually sanctioning trade between Africa and Russia, for example And that's because of the financial sanctions which are extraterritorial, which are in that sense, in the larger sense of the word, undeclared economic war And as number of jurists have said, this is really a part of war And as you know, this kind of war is international war, undeclared international war, of course, is a huge implications of international law, but I'm not getting into that issue The issue that you are raising is how do you restructure international trade in a way that countries can transact business directly Which means the ability to pay each other, which is finally comes down to the currency war that we have talked about Russia has recovered out of the currency war. The ruble is trading much stronger than it did for the last two, three years But what about other countries and what happens to their currencies in a condition where that currency cannot buy as much in the market due to price rise So all of this is the really the trade war, the economic war, that is what is a key issue today And can we get to a world system where the trade between countries is not affected by third countries imposing sanctions Which is in this case a handful of western countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada and of course the European Union So I think this is the key issue and how it will play out, will it play out in weakening of the Western European countries and the United States Or will it lead to weakening of Russia in the long run is something that we have to observe carefully But as we have been talking about, there have been financial analysts who said that increasingly currency will be pegged to a bunch of commodities And in that those who are doing the primary commodities export or commodities of finished goods certainly will have an advantage over those Who are doing invisible exports of services or financial instruments, extracting money from financial instruments Or from for instance even about from say entertainment and software, after all you know, you can stop eating, you're seeing Netflix but you can't stop eating So there is this issue that comes up, how do you tag on your currencies to what? And I think increasingly this is going to become an issue that dollar and euro being the de facto global currencies particular dollar That is going to come into question if this particular economic war continues, which it is shows at least sign of abating I'm not sure even if there is a ceasefire in Ukraine, this would really take place So as we see the war in Ukraine, the economic war, the undeclared war having a drastic impact on not only international politics but also on our wallets across the world We will be tracking many such issues in future episodes of Mapping Fortlines, until then keep watching NewsClick