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Speaker 1: The United Nations Security Council. Today, the US accused Russia

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Speaker 1: of using food as a weapon in its war against

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Speaker 1: Ukraine and in turn creating a global food security crisis.

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Speaker 2: From flying to driving to eating, life is suddenly a

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Speaker 2: lot more expensive.

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Speaker 3: Global food costs are police of climb even further on

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Speaker 3: soaring wheat prices after India curbed exports. Droughts, floods, and

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Speaker 3: heat waves are threatening production worldwide, just as Russias were

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Speaker 3: in Ukraine, throttle supply from one of the largest growers.

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Speaker 4: Across the globe. Rising inflation, growing trade tensions, extreme weather,

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Speaker 4: and war have led to ever higher food prices and

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Speaker 4: in many places, shortages of once plentiful staples like wheat

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Speaker 4: and rice. Bloomberg's Agneshka Desuza reports that this problem of

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Speaker 4: food insecurity has now become a top issue in election

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Speaker 4: campaigns in Europe, Asia and South America and even in

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Speaker 4: the US.

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Speaker 5: More than two billion people will head to ballot polls

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Speaker 5: between October and May or June. And it's some of

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Speaker 5: the most populous countries, you know, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Egypt,

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Speaker 5: Argentina and so on.

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Speaker 4: And later I talked to Chatham House food security expert

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Speaker 4: Tim Benton.

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Speaker 6: It's not just low income countries and climate vulnerable countries,

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Speaker 6: it's also the rich world. Across the European Union, for example,

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Speaker 6: five million people a year die from dietary related ill health.

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Speaker 4: I'm Westcasova today on the big take. Food is on

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Speaker 4: the ballot, Aggie. You're right that we are starting to

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Speaker 4: hear about food and food insecurity and food politics in

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Speaker 4: elections all around the world. Why has food become such

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Speaker 4: a big election issue now?

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Speaker 5: I guess we can just go back a little bit

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Speaker 5: and try to understand and look at the global picture

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Speaker 5: right now. I mean, we've had almost two years of inflation,

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Speaker 5: started with developing countries and spilled over to developed countries.

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Speaker 5: It's something very sticky. Central banks have managed to control

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Speaker 5: and extend core inflation. But it's the food inflation that

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Speaker 5: is just not going away. It may be easy, but

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Speaker 5: it's not going away. It is a big issue, and

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Speaker 5: it's something that's visible on supermarket shelves. It's something very

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Speaker 5: very close to anyone. There are so many food risks

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Speaker 5: out there that politicians will need to pay attention to.

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Speaker 5: And I would summarize it in a couple of words, war,

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Speaker 5: the weather and export bands and essentially I mean erratic

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Speaker 5: weather from heat waves, hail, floods have an impact on

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Speaker 5: key crops around the world, anything from wheat, rice, to

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Speaker 5: olive oil, tomatoes, even even livestock. You know, at the

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Speaker 5: end of the day, livestock needs water, it needs food,

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Speaker 5: it needs grass, and even something like milk supply could

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Speaker 5: be affected. And it just depends where you go. You're

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Speaker 5: gonna see the impact, you know. At the same time, war,

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Speaker 5: the war in Ukraine restricted flows of key crops out

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Speaker 5: of the country. Sunflower oil. Ukraine is absolutely a dominant

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Speaker 5: player producer in that market.

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Speaker 2: Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that country exported nearly

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Speaker 2: half the world supply of sunflower oil. Now grocers in

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Speaker 2: the UK and up are limiting how much people can

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Speaker 2: buy as those supplies dwindle.

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Speaker 5: Wheat or corn. You know, all of that has been

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Speaker 5: affected by the conflict and an agreement that was meant

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Speaker 5: to facilitate the flow, the safe passage of those crops

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Speaker 5: out of the Ukraine has largely came to an end

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Speaker 5: because of the Russian rudrawal from.

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Speaker 7: It in Ukraine are accusing Russia of grossly violating international obligations.

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Speaker 7: That comes after the Russian Defense Ministry said all ships

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Speaker 7: sailing into ports in the Black Sea would be considered

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Speaker 7: military ships.

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Speaker 5: So that's especially affecting countries that were dependent on Ukraine

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Speaker 5: for their imports. And then you know, we've got risks

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Speaker 5: from the return of El Nino.

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Speaker 4: For three years, officially, El Nino has developed down in

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Speaker 4: the Pacific. We always watch Al Nino and l Nina

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Speaker 4: based on how they affect our hurricane.

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Speaker 5: We haven't seen it play out completely in terms of

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Speaker 5: the true impact. We are seeing little by little the

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Speaker 5: impact from Elino, but we know there will be more.

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Speaker 5: There would be more of it, and countries are nervous,

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Speaker 5: and we see countries in Self East Asia, for example,

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Speaker 5: being nervous about it. You know, all that nervousness, what's

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Speaker 5: going to happen to El Nina, What's going to happen

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Speaker 5: to the weather? Inflation? That need to control food inflation

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Speaker 5: is making governments nervous, so they are trying to do something,

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Speaker 5: and that's when protectionism comes in. So they need to

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Speaker 5: control the exports. Let's keep our foods at home so

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Speaker 5: our prices are not too high, you know, let's control

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Speaker 5: the prices through the flow of goods. That's what governments

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Speaker 5: are trying to do as well, and we are seeing

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Speaker 5: it happen in India, the world's biggest rice exporter. The

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Speaker 5: government of A. Narendra Modi is clearly nervous about food.

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Speaker 5: India introduced restrictions on experts of rice.

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Speaker 8: Russian missiles are hitting Ukraine and the impact is being

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Speaker 8: felt all the way here in India. Udaila has been

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Speaker 8: forced to make some tough goals. India has banned the

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Speaker 8: export of rice and it's a very big deal because

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Speaker 8: India is the world's biggest exporter of rice and now

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Speaker 8: it has stopped. This has led to panic in the

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Speaker 8: global markets.

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Speaker 4: And you're right that something as simple as the humble

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Speaker 4: onion has huge political effects.

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Speaker 5: Yes, and you wouldn't expect that from the humble onion,

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Speaker 5: something that people take for granted, but governments don't. And

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Speaker 5: just look to India, where onions are ubiquitous, such an

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Speaker 5: important component of people's diet, and it's something that soaring

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Speaker 5: prices of onions have the power to shake up government.

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Speaker 5: They actually can cost politicians their seats and we've seen

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Speaker 5: that play out in the past and clearly It's something

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Speaker 5: that the government in India is very sensitive too, and

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Speaker 5: we've already seen even this year modes government introducing a

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Speaker 5: special export duty on onions so then to keep more

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Speaker 5: onions at home. It has battled soaring tomato prices. I mean,

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Speaker 5: at some point tomato prices have gone up by something

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Speaker 5: like seven hundred percent. I mean it was crazy a month.

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Speaker 5: Restaurant chains like McDonald's couldn't even get hold of them.

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Speaker 5: Inflation is still high. It has come down. They have

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Speaker 5: managed to keep it somehow under control, so we're seeing

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Speaker 5: the signs of easing. But we are seeing prices of staples,

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Speaker 5: of spices of grains very very high compared with a

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Speaker 5: year ago. So this is something that for people were

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Speaker 5: in a country that there's still play plenty of food

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Speaker 5: insecurity of malnutrition, you know, it's still something that needs

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Speaker 5: to be addressed, and the government is clearly trying to

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Speaker 5: do that.

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Speaker 4: You also write that in twenty twenty three, in twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty four, there are a lot of elections around the world,

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Speaker 4: which is another reason why food has become such an issue.

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Speaker 4: Where are some of the countries where we're seeing this happen.

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Speaker 5: More than two billion people will head to ballot polls

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Speaker 5: between October and May or June, and it's some of

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Speaker 5: the most populous countries, you know, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Egypt,

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Speaker 5: Argentina and so on. What we're seeing is governments or

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Speaker 5: political parties, opposition parties trying to address two issues. One

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Speaker 5: thing is how do we appeal to consumers, anyone that

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Speaker 5: buys food. But then how do we appeal to farmers,

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Speaker 5: still a very powerful political force in many countries. I

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Speaker 5: think Wes we spoke a year ago or so and

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Speaker 5: we talked about how powerful farmers can be because there

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Speaker 5: are millions of them, and there are lobby groups, and

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Speaker 5: they're quite vocal about their discontent. If there's discontent, farmers

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Speaker 5: will go and protest and show it. One key example

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Speaker 5: is Poland. We've seen that in the elections this year.

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Speaker 5: This content among farmers was brewing for months. They weren't

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Speaker 5: happy about the inflow of grains and other foods from Ukraine.

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Speaker 5: They were concerned it was staying in the country and

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Speaker 5: pushing down the prices and creating competition to them, and

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Speaker 5: the government had to eventually had to respond. So in Poland,

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Speaker 5: the ruling party it tried to restrict the imports of

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Speaker 5: grains from Ukraine, making sure that it does not stay

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Speaker 5: within that country. So we've had an update since we

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Speaker 5: wrote the story. The Law and Justice, the ruling party

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Speaker 5: in Poland, in fact has lost the elections. They did

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Speaker 5: manage to attract the farmer vote, but in this case, consumers,

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Speaker 5: the city population turned up. The turnout was really huge

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Speaker 5: compared with any previous collection, and they lost the vote.

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Speaker 5: So in the end, the farmer vote was not enough

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Speaker 5: to make Lawn Justice win.

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Speaker 4: Aggie, you mentioned that when we last talked, we were

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Speaker 4: talking about how powerful farmers were, and at that time

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Speaker 4: it was about the Netherlands, and farmers were very upset

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Speaker 4: about government requirements to reduce emissions from cows in order

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Speaker 4: to meet climate goals, and that too had really big

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Speaker 4: effects across the country.

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Speaker 5: More than a year ago, the Dutch government's decision to

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Speaker 5: curb nitrogen emissions and close many polluting farms led to

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Speaker 5: countrywide protests. Farmers got really, really angry. They went to

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Speaker 5: the streets, they burnt things, they blocked roads, they went

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Speaker 5: to the Hague, they protested. We did see changes as

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Speaker 5: a result in a Dutch political scene, and in fact

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Speaker 5: there were elections held and that party known as BBB

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Speaker 5: got most votes.

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Speaker 4: After the break. Who's most affected by this turmoil in

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Speaker 4: global food markets, Aggie. In other country you write about

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Speaker 4: that's facing these questions about food in their elections is

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Speaker 4: New Zealand.

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Speaker 5: New Zealand is an interesting one because they were viewed

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Speaker 5: as this very progressive country with the first ever tax

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Speaker 5: on agriculture, you know, the first ever cow tax. So

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Speaker 5: it was seeing whow you know, you know, there is

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Speaker 5: something happening in farming and finally we're seeing climate impact

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Speaker 5: from agriculture being addressed by a government. But it wasn't

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Speaker 5: something popular among farmers and as the election started to

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Speaker 5: get closer, politicians started to you know, voice their opinions

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Speaker 5: about it, and the opposition party in fact, during the

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Speaker 5: campaign was that clear we want to push this emissions goal,

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Speaker 5: this the missions tax back until twenty thirty. So the

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Speaker 5: government could not stand still. They had to come up

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Speaker 5: with their own delay. They proposed emissions pricing being delayed

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Speaker 5: towards the end of twenty twenty five. Now the opposition

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Speaker 5: party won the elections and so we are likely to

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Speaker 5: see a further delay in this part of it shows

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Speaker 5: that implementing those climate policies in agriculture is not going

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Speaker 5: to be easy.

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Speaker 6: Aggie.

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Speaker 4: You said earlier that a lot of countries want to

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Speaker 4: try to keep their own crops, what they produce in

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Speaker 4: the country instead of exporting it. But in the case

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Speaker 4: of Argentina, you write, politicians are promising to do exactly

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Speaker 4: the opposite.

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Speaker 5: Argentina is kind of an outlier in my piece because

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Speaker 5: we've noted that food has become a more common issue,

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Speaker 5: Addressing farmer needs have become more common theme in upcoming elections,

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Speaker 5: but Argentina is one of those countries who are actually

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Speaker 5: food and farming has mattered for decades. So in typically

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Speaker 5: in those exporting crop exporting countries like Brazil or Argentina, farmers, farming,

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Speaker 5: food production do matter for governments, and they do matter

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Speaker 5: for elections. But in this case, what's interesting is that

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Speaker 5: the candidates, especially the shock front runner during the election campaigns, A.

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Speaker 5: Xavier Malay, was actually pushing for the opposite, was pushing

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Speaker 5: for liberalizing farming, which would actually be quite positive from

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Speaker 5: a global point of view because that would mean more

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Speaker 5: supplies coming out of Argentina. So we're not talking here

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Speaker 5: about protectionism and restricting supplies. We would be potentially talking

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Speaker 5: about more soy meal, more corn, more beef coming out

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Speaker 5: of Argentina.

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Speaker 4: What are we to take away from all of this?

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Speaker 5: I think the fact that there are many different food risks,

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Speaker 5: food inflation is not going away, it's very sticky. The

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Speaker 5: fact that elections are coming likely to lead to policy changes.

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Speaker 5: All of that points to a very unstable food security

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Speaker 5: situation in the world.

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Speaker 4: Aggie, I was great talking with you. Thanks for coming

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Speaker 4: on the show.

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Speaker 5: Thank you so much.

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Speaker 4: Now let's hear from someone who's studied this problem for years.

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Speaker 4: Professor Tim Benton leads the Environment and Society Program at

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Speaker 4: Chathamhouse in London, and he's worked on food insecurity issues

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Speaker 4: with UK governments, the EU and the G twenty. Tim

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Speaker 4: is someone who thinks about food and food insecurity for

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Speaker 4: a living. Can you paint us a picture of the

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Speaker 4: world's food supply right now?

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Speaker 6: Well, we've created a globalized food system over the last

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Speaker 6: forty or fifty years, predominantly since the late eighties, which

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Speaker 6: is predicated on producing a very large amount of a

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Speaker 6: relatively small number of highly traded grains so rice, wheat, maize,

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Speaker 6: soy and palm oiland things like that. So we have

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Speaker 6: a global system upon which almost everybody relies in some way,

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Speaker 6: shape or form. So we've got this food system which

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Speaker 6: is normally very efficient. But as the climate changes and

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Speaker 6: as the demand for food grows and we're undermining the

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Speaker 6: ability to produce that food, the global food system is

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Speaker 6: also getting more volatile. So shocks from the climate is

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Speaker 6: disrupting supplies. We have seen over the last fifteen years

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Speaker 6: or so significant fluctuations in prices, fluctuations in availability, and

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Speaker 6: of course all of those interact with what else is

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Speaker 6: going on in the world. So in a sense, the

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Speaker 6: climate environmental degradation is making the supply tighter and more

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Speaker 6: volatile at a time where the world is getting tighter

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Speaker 6: and more volatile.

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Speaker 4: And tim Where are you seeing this most acutely right now?

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Speaker 6: Well everywhere really. I mean it's not just low income

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Speaker 6: countries and climate vulnerable countries, it's also the rich world.

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Speaker 6: I mean, across the European Union, for example, five million

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Speaker 6: people a year die from diet related ill health, and

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Speaker 6: many of those are people who are really economically marginalized,

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Speaker 6: eating the worst sorts of diets, lots of calories but

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Speaker 6: not enough nutrition. So given the post Ukraine post COVID

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Speaker 6: cost of living crisis, everywhere in the world has suffered

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Speaker 6: significant food inflation, and whether you're a poor person in

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Speaker 6: a poor country or a poor person in a rich country,

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Speaker 6: that really matters. And inflation of food prices of running

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Speaker 6: over five percent is happening in all countries. Sixty to

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Speaker 6: eighty five percent of all countries are suffering high food

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Speaker 6: price inflation at the moment, and six percent of lower

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Speaker 6: middle income countries are having significant food price inflation.

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Speaker 4: The world's two largest economies, the US and China, drive

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Speaker 4: a lot of decisions around the world. How important is

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Speaker 4: that to the global food supply?

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Speaker 6: Pretty big, but not the only determinant, because the major

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Speaker 6: determinant of the kind of globalized food system comes from

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Speaker 6: the major bread basket region, So production in the US,

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Speaker 6: in Latin America, in Europe, in Indonesian Manasia for palm,

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Speaker 6: oeraland in China and Asia and Southeast Asia for rice

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Speaker 6: and so on. So we got five major bread baskets

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Speaker 6: responsible for maize, soy, wheat, rice, and oil the major commodities.

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Speaker 6: So all of those countries have a significant leverage on

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Speaker 6: the debate, but nominally at least they are governed by

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Speaker 6: the World Trade Organization, and you know the rules put

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Speaker 6: in place in the late eighties for trade liberalization. But

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Speaker 6: as the World Trade Organization and other multilateral bodies are

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Speaker 6: undermined by governments swinging to the right and pandering to

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Speaker 6: protectionist reasons, the ability to circumvent the trade rules is growing.

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Speaker 6: And the US has played a part in undermining the

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Speaker 6: WTO and the production and in those bread basket regions

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Speaker 6: and the power of China to dominate some of the markets.

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Speaker 6: They're all part and parcel of the situation. But there

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Speaker 6: isn't one central brain. That's part of the issue with

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Speaker 6: the food system that it's literally a complex system that

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Speaker 6: the behavior emerges from every single farmer, every single trader,

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Speaker 6: every single food company, every single consumer making individual choices,

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Speaker 6: and it's very difficult. It has no central brain, it's

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Speaker 6: not governed, and it is very subject to events such

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Speaker 6: as wars, trade wars, you know, protectionism, COVID interruptions, port

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Speaker 6: infrastructure getting flooded, and a whole range of other things.

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Speaker 6: Any One of these things can lead to a kind

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Speaker 6: of domino effect that creates a risk that reverberates around

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Speaker 6: the world because of a supply chain interruption.

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Speaker 4: When we come back, what can be done to stabilize

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Speaker 4: the global food supply Given the way the structure of

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Speaker 4: the world in various trading relationships have changed recently, are

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Speaker 4: there policies that can actually help this?

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Speaker 6: That's the question for which we could debate for a

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Speaker 6: very long time. There is a need increasingly to think

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Speaker 6: about food security, whether you're in a rich country or

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Speaker 6: a port country, in terms of if the global market

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Speaker 6: falls apart, where does your food come from? Because over

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Speaker 6: the last forty years or so, there has been a

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Speaker 6: lot of a country saying, well, we're really good at

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Speaker 6: growing this, we'll grow an excess of it, we'll export

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Speaker 6: the excess, and we'll buy in what we're not growing.

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Speaker 6: So trade on comparative advantage. That only works if the

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Speaker 6: world is stable, and if you're a country, a liberalized

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Speaker 6: trading country like the UK, you rely on the global

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Speaker 6: market to supply your feet. So if something goes wrong,

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Speaker 6: you have to have a plan. B are thinking about

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Speaker 6: their plan bias. How do you build resilience? Do you

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Speaker 6: trade with your enemies, do you onshore and develop your

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Speaker 6: local growing capacity or whatever. So however you kind of

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Speaker 6: square that circle in terms of the world becoming more fragmented,

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Speaker 6: trade becoming more difficult. There are trade offs, and this

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Speaker 6: is why again this becomes politically really important. If you

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Speaker 6: want greater self sufficiency, feed availability might go down and

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Speaker 6: prices might go up, but it might support your local

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Speaker 6: farming and if your farming community is really important for

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Speaker 6: you politically, that might be a route in to that debate.

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Speaker 6: But the reality of your answer is we want a

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Speaker 6: calm world that is rules based, where everybody plays nicely.

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Speaker 6: But we're not in that world at the moment, and

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Speaker 6: we're not in that world, both because of the geopolitical

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Speaker 6: tensions but also because of climate change.

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Speaker 4: As you say, there's a lot of facets to this,

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Speaker 4: and it paints a very complicated picture. Is there one

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Speaker 4: thing that you're a specially concerned about right now?

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Speaker 6: Well, in the short term, I'm especially concerned about the

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Speaker 6: next twelve to eighteen months. Twenty twenty three has been

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Speaker 6: obviously a year of different character when it comes to

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Speaker 6: the weather, on top of which we have a growing

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Speaker 6: at al Nino, which typically impacts a swathe of countries

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Speaker 6: in the middle of the world. And if you look

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Speaker 6: at the swathe of countries in the middle of the world,

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Speaker 6: whether it is Venezuela, Columbia, DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo,

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Speaker 6: South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, all of those countries are

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Speaker 6: teetering on the edge of state fragility. So if we

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Speaker 6: have an al Nino that creates floods and droughts on

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Speaker 6: top of already a super hot world in twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 6: hottesst year in record, who knows what the food supply

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Speaker 6: impacts will be and what their impacts will be on

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Speaker 6: migration flows, human displacement, on global food prices and so on.

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Speaker 4: Are there any politicians or countries that you think are

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Speaker 4: doing it right or are proposing an alternative that could

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Speaker 4: help the situation.

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Speaker 6: No, but there are emerging shoots I think of hope.

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Speaker 6: So the biggest political challenge is to move to a

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Speaker 6: food system that supplies healthy diets in a sustainable way,

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Speaker 6: and that implies shifting the demand side, so shifting what

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Speaker 6: people eat and how much they eat, rather than producing

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Speaker 6: an oversupply off some grains that end up contributing to

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Speaker 6: dietaral health and getting thrown away, particularly in the rich world.

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Speaker 6: But within the climate change negotiations, particularly the recognition that

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Speaker 6: food or food systems in general contribute about a third

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Speaker 6: of greenhouse gases means that as we are grappling with

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Speaker 6: the carbon debate, so we have a sectoral plan or

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Speaker 6: vision for transports, we have a sectoral plan or vision

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Speaker 6: for energy generation, we're having to get us start to

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Speaker 6: grapple with a sectoral vision for food systems.

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Speaker 4: Tim, thanks so much for your time. This was really fascinating.

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Speaker 4: Thank you.

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Speaker 6: Wes lovely to speak to you.

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Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.

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Speaker 4: It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more

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Speaker 4: shows from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 4: wherever you listen, and we'd love to hear from you.

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Speaker 4: Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg

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Speaker 4: dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take is

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Speaker 4: Vicky Ergalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. This episode

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Speaker 4: was produced by Zenob Sidiki and Federica Romanielo Kilde Garcia

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Speaker 4: is our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin.

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Speaker 4: I'm Wes Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another Big Take.