The EU’s Farm to Fork programme, which emphasizes organic agriculture, could lead to reduced domestic production and require increased imports from Latin America and Africa.

According to David LaBorde, a senior research at the International Food Policy Research Institute, whilst food supply is tightening globally, humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations World Food Program are still able to find food to distribute, but their costs are much higher.

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Mr LaBorde called on donor nations to raise their contributions but admitted this was complicated as some countries’ were unwilling to provide money to humanitarian organizations if the UN were then going to buy grain from Russia. The shock to global food markets looks to have eased in some areas, with Indonesia appearing to stop its export restrictions on palm oil, but there are concerns that India is keeping restrictive export taxes on wheat flour, broken rice and rice export taxes.

Fellow researcher at IFPRI, Joe Glauber, said shipments through the Black Sea from Ukraine were only 30% of pre-war levels despite the agreement with Russia. Furthermore the high global cereal prices are struggling to get back to Ukrainian farmers since the price of shipping and storage were being fed back down to the primary producer.

This has raised concern that the area of cereals and sunflowers to be planted could fall. Russia has accused the west of holding onto Ukrainian grain and preventing developing nations from being fed. However Mr Glauber said the Ukrainian grain consumed in the EU was already scheduled for Europe destination before the war, but it has been delayed due to logistics.

Global wheat availability is better this year than 2021 after strong yields in Canada and South America, with higher prices leading Brazil to export more the usual. However global stocks are not being rebuilt, which is helping underpin higher prices.

The IFPRI also noted that in some markets, such as in Southern Africa, the price of grain is set by local buying power which has not grown in 2022. Farmers in these regions are suffering higher input costs with little swelling of farmgate prices, leading Mr LaBorde to indicate area’s sown might fall, further exacerbating the global picture. The old saying that the best way to alleviate high prices is with high prices, doesn’t appear to be holding true in the global food market as the cost of food appears to be on a firm footing.