A global food crisis sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine escalated today as Indonesia tightened curbs on palm oil exports.
The move added to a growing list of key producing countries seeking to keep vital food supplies within their borders.
The conflict in Ukraine is threatening global grain production, the supply of edible oils and fertiliser exports, sending basic commodity prices rocketing and mirroring the crisis in energy markets.
Palm oil is the world's most widely used vegetable oil and is used in the manufacture of many products including biscuits, margarine, laundry detergents and chocolate.
Palm oil prices have risen by more than 50% this year.
Indonesia's Trade Minister Muhammad Lufti said the export curbs aimed to ensure that cooking oil prices at home remain affordable to consumers.
The rise in prices comes at a time when affordability of food is a major challenge as economies seek to recover from the coronavirus crisis and is also helping to fuel a broader surge in inflation across the globe.
Russia and Ukraine are also important suppliers of edible oils as well as contributing nearly 30% of global wheat exports.
Ukraine announced today it had banned a wide range of agricultural exports including barley, sugar and meat until the end of the year.
The conflict has not only disrupted shipments from the Black Sea region but is also jeopardising prospects for harvests as fertilizer prices soar and supplies shrink in response to a sharp rise in the cost of natural gas - a key component in the manufacturing process for many products.
World food prices rose to a record high in February to post a year-on-year increase of 20.7%, according to the United Nations food agency, while many markets have continued to climb this month.
Soybean oil prices have climbed by almost 40% this year.
Russia and Ukraine are both major producers of sunflower oil and the two countries account for almost 80% of global exports, leaving customers such as India scrambling to secure supplies of alternatives such as palm oil and soyoil.
Chicago wheat futures have climbed around 60% so far this year, threatening to raise the cost of key food staples such as bread.
The loss of two major exporters in Ukraine and Russia has been compounded by news that the condition of the wheat crop in the world's top producer, China, may be the "worst in history" according to the country's agriculture minister.
Poor growing conditions in drought-affected parts of the US Plains look set to further tighten supplies.
Serbia announced today it will ban exports of wheat, corn, flour and cooking oil from tomorrow to counter price increases while Hungary banned all grain exports last week.
Bulgaria has also announced it will increase its grain reserves and might restrict exports until it has carried out planned purchases.
Grain supplies in Romania, a major exporter, have also tightened as international buyers seek alternatives to Russia or Ukrainian supplies although there are currently no plans to restrict shipments.
Global grain production could also decline as the production of fertilisers, which help to boost crop yields, is curtailed following a rise in natural gas prices.
Yara, one of the world's largest fertiliser makers, said today it was curtailing its ammonia and urea output in Italy and France.
The Norwegian company warned last week that the conflict was threatening global food supplies.
Russia, which calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" rather than an invasion, had been a major supplier of fertilisers but the country's trade and industry ministry recommended on Friday that producers temporarily halt exports.
The crisis in Ukraine is rapidly developing into an "unprecedented risk to global food security",a professor of Agriculture and Food Economics has warned.
Ukraine crisis represents 'severe threat' to Irish food supply chains
UCD Professor Michael Wallace said that while Irish stores were unlikely to see shortages on the shelves, the disruption still represented a "severe threat" to Irish food supply chains.
"This humanitarian catastrophe that were witnessing in Ukraine is rapidly developing into an unprecedented risk to global food security," the Professor told RTE's News at One.
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The Professor said the new committee on Fodder and Food Security is an essential effort on our own part to look at strategies to address the risks we are exposed to in Ireland,
"I think in Europe generally we have awakened to a weakness in our food systems around their resilience to geopolitical shocks of a type that we would have previously considered totally unthinkable," he said.
"It is about how we address those vulnerabilities - particularly our reliance on Russia for critical resources - but in the food sector particularly around our reliance on their supplies of fertiliser. In Ireland we get a quarter of our synthetic fertilisers essential for crops and grassland imported from Russia," he said.
Professor Wallace said that both Ukraine and Russia are key, dominant players, in the international grain market, adding that they account for about 30% of global trade of wheat and barley.
He said given this, the disruption due to war and sanctions are a "severe threat" to Irish food supply chains, which is evident through cost and availability at the moment.
From an Irish perspective, the Professor said there were unlikely to be shortages on supermarket shelves here, adding however that some imported products may become less available, and increases may become more evident in the price of bread and breakfast cereals.
He added that there would be greater price inflation too in meat and dairy products to reflect the "dramatic increase" in production costs.
Professor Wallace said Ukraine's exports of wheat are a huge supplier to not just Europe, but to Africa and further afield, adding that it represents a huge vulnerability for countries reliant on it.
"We’re staring into a particularly serious and worrying issue for the developing world," he added.
