West, not Russia, to blame for food crisis

Konstantin KosachevDeputy Speaker of the Russian Federal Council

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and then the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation and the UN World Food Programme, in unison announced the risk of famine coming this fall for many developing countries with a population of 1.7 billion people.

 “Events in Ukraine” are cited as an explanation for the forecast. Without specifying the perpetrators.

And now my prediction. The West, which will not lift a finger to prevent this apocalyptic scenario, is preparing another trap for Russia.  Firstly, when and if famine really breaks out, our country will be indiscriminately blamed for it. 

And then Western humanitarian aid will go to the world’s poorest countries, conditioned by the demand to refuse any support for Russia and continue to “vote only correctly.” It is “win-win situation” from the point of view of the West since the suffering of hundreds of millions of people will not be taken into account.

In fact, the catastrophe is real, and it has not been postponed until the fall, but is being laid already now, in these weeks and days. The fact is that most poor countries will not be able to put into the soil this year the fertiliser required for their own crops. 

Prices for these fertilisers have risen sharply, and there are several reasons for this, and all of them are man-made. 

Ammonia fertilisers depend on gas prices, and its cost in Europe (read – in the world) has increased many times as a result of Western adventures with the spot market instead of long-term contracts, liquefied gas from the US and the abandonment of a new pipeline from Russia. Potash fertilisers are blocked in significant volumes by Western sanctions in Belarus, Russia and China – the world’s main suppliers, prices have again skyrocketed. 

It is obvious that phosphate fertilisers in such conditions also cannot be maintained at the same price. The conclusion is that due to the lack of fertilisers (and not “because of Ukraine”), a terrible crop failure is coming in the developing world, it is coming due to the destructive sanctions policy of the West.

Secondly, there may be disruptions in the supply of grain from Russia. But again, not because Russia will stop supplying this grain, we have the most favourable prospects for the harvest, but because our exports will be artificially interfered with by Western transport sanctions.

And the hostilities in Ukraine are far from across the country to talk about her falling out of the grain supply chains.

But the noise on the topic “Russian aggression in Ukraine doomed a significant part of humanity to starvation” has already begun in the West, and it will once again be dispersed politically and media to a world-wide hysteria that takes out the brain, if we don’t see and prevent it now (it will be late in the fall). What we need to do?

First. To promote this topic ourselves, proactively and offensively, on all possible platforms. Fix the exclusive responsibility of the West with its illegal and destructive sanctions for the coming food crisis in the world. Spread this information in countries under attack.

Second. Reconfigure the logistics chains for the supply of grain and other types of food from Russia to developing countries in accordance with existing contracts in order to prevent their disruption. If it turns out to be impossible – for example, transit European ports are closed – again declare this in full voice, fixing not only understandable economic, but also terrible humanitarian consequences.

And third. Russia has a unique chance, through programs of assistance to developing countries (the so-called “international development assistance”, IDA), to sharply strengthen its position in this part of the world, acting as a source and sponsor of solving the imminent colossal problems. 

Government decisions will be required in order to be able to buy surpluses of the future harvest from domestic producers at the expense of the budget for their subsequent gratuitous delivery to countries in need.

This is what will be the real foreign policy in this difficult period of time. This is how, cynically and assertively, geopolitical competitors work. So, but without cynicism and in the best domestic traditions of humanity, we should also learn how to work.

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