MILITARY THREATS TO GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY AND FIRST INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS TO OVERCOME THEIR CONSEQUENCES: POLITICAL ECONOMY SECTION

Abstract

The critical situation in the global food markets is revealed against the background of an array of shocks in recent years, accompanied by a gradual increase in the number of hungry people in the world. Russia's war of aggression and its targeted attacks on Ukraine's agricultural infrastructure have destroyed opportunities to overcome pre-war global food shocks.

Military aggression added two new destructive factors. First, the war simultaneously blocked the markets of agricultural commodities and finished agricultural products. Secondly, the war has a significant impact on the markets of basic resources for agricultural production. Such market shocks provoke different reactions and market responses in developed and low- and middle-income countries. The food situation is becoming political: rise in food prices has already had a negative impact on political processes in some countries around the world; the role of local food systems is growing.

The results of FAO assessments (as of the beginning of the war) of risk factors and forecasts of the impact of military aggression on global food security are presented, the recommendations of international organizations on overcoming the crisis are summarized. It is noted that the prospects for food security management at the global level are not only negative. The war exacerbates structural inequality and instability in global agricultural and food chains and resource markets for agriculture, but at the same time, demonstrates the resilience of locally integrated food systems and the adequacy of responses to military challenges from smallholder farmers, peasants and their solidarity-based communities.