Download As PDF

An article by Tom Tugendhat in The Daily Telegraph carries a disturbing title: “The wheat war has begun and it could trigger a revolution.”

The immediate danger comes from the war between Russia and Ukraine. Both countries are major grain exporters. Attacks on their ports, ships and storage facilities are reducing the amount of wheat reaching the world market.

Ukraine has attacked Russian grain terminals, including the enormous port of Novorossiysk. Russia continues to attack Ukrainian farms, ships and ports, including Odesa and Izmail. Shipowners are increasingly reluctant to send vessels into dangerous waters.

The result is that grain exports from both countries are falling sharply. According to Tugendhat, Ukrainian exports fell by 76 per cent during the first half of August. Russian wheat exports in July were less than half their five-year average.

Wheat prices have already risen considerably this year. But the deeper warning is that the consequences of today’s disruption may not be fully felt until next year.

More Than a War

It would be comforting to believe that this is simply another consequence of the war. If peace returned, the problem would gradually disappear.

Unfortunately, the position is much more serious.

The war is exposing the fragility of a global food system that depends upon a small number of exporting countries, vulnerable sea routes, plentiful natural gas, synthetic fertiliser and cheap transport.

Britain’s own harvest has been damaged by heat and drought. Farmers elsewhere face similar conditions. Extreme weather is no longer an occasional local problem. Poor harvests can now occur in several important producing areas at the same time.

Meanwhile, the Persian Gulf conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have interrupted the international fertiliser trade. Roughly one-third of the world’s traded urea normally passes through the strait. Its price almost doubled in April.

This matters because modern grain production depends heavily upon nitrogen fertiliser. Industrial nitrogen is manufactured using natural gas. Gas is also required to provide the heat and energy used in the manufacturing process.

Modern wheat is therefore not simply a crop grown from soil, rain and sunlight. It is part of an industrial system sustained by fossil fuels.

Natural gas makes the fertiliser. Oil powers tractors, combines, lorries and ships. Electricity dries and stores the grain. Global financial and trading systems move it between continents.

When one part of that system fails, stocks may conceal the problem for a while. Supermarket shelves do not empty immediately. Bread prices may remain fairly stable.

The bill arrives later.

A fertiliser shortage this year reduces next year’s harvest. A shipping interruption draws down stored grain. If stocks are not replenished, the next disruption begins from a much weaker position.

Food Prices and Political Stability

Rising food prices do not automatically cause revolutions. They can, however, become the event that turns widespread dissatisfaction into popular unrest.

This happened before the Arab Spring. A severe Russian heatwave in 2010 contributed to a grain export ban. International food prices rose. By early 2011, the cost of staple foods had become one of the grievances driving protests in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia.

The political conditions were already present. Rising food prices helped ignite them.

Poorer countries are most immediately exposed because food absorbs a large proportion of household income. But Britain is not protected.

When food prices rise, the poorest households are forced to reduce spending elsewhere. Local shops, pubs, cafés and other discretionary businesses then lose customers. Employment falls. Government support becomes more expensive just as tax receipts weaken.

Food inflation can therefore spread through the whole economy.

This is particularly dangerous in a shrinking economy. Governments may try to protect households through subsidies, borrowing or price controls. Such measures can temporarily redistribute the cost, but they cannot create grain, fertiliser or energy.

A physical shortage cannot be solved by printing money.

Britain Has Allowed Its Defences to Disappear

Britain imports a substantial part of its food, animal feed, fertiliser and energy. Our food supply depends upon long international chains over which we have little control.

We have also allowed domestic fertiliser production to disappear. Britain’s last large ammonia plant has closed. Farmers must now compete for supplies on the international market and pay the cost of transporting them here.

Tugendhat proposes that Britain should hold strategic fertiliser reserves, just as countries hold emergency oil stocks. There is considerable sense in treating nitrogen fertiliser as a strategic commodity.

But reserves can only provide temporary protection. They cannot resolve the underlying dependence.

Nor should the answer be simply to maximise industrial agriculture at any environmental cost. Soil degradation, loss of organic matter, water shortages and declining biodiversity are also threats to future food production.

The real task is to make agriculture less vulnerable while continuing to produce enough food.

That will require a mixture of methods. Fertiliser must be used more carefully. Manure and human waste will have to be treated as valuable resources. Crop rotations, legumes and mixed farming can help restore nitrogen naturally. Soil must be protected so that it retains more water during droughts and absorbs more water during floods.

None of these measures offers an instant replacement for industrial fertiliser. But together they can reduce our exposure to an increasingly unreliable world market.

Food Must Become More Local

The central lesson is that food security cannot be left entirely to international markets.

For decades, Britain has assumed that food will always be available from somewhere. If one country has a poor harvest, traders will buy from another. If domestic production is expensive, imports will fill the gap.

That assumption becomes dangerous when several failures happen together.

War restricts Black Sea exports. Drought reduces British yields. Conflict interrupts fertiliser supplies. Energy costs increase. Shipping becomes more expensive and dangerous. Exporting countries may then protect their own populations by restricting sales abroad.

Under these conditions, the country with the most money will not necessarily obtain all the food it wants. Exporters will place their own security first.

A more resilient system would produce a greater proportion of essential food closer to where it is consumed.

This does not mean that every locality must become completely self-sufficient. That would be neither possible nor desirable. It means rebuilding the ability to produce, process, store and distribute basic food within Britain and within its localities.

More land could be used for fruit, vegetables, pulses and other foods intended directly for people. Local mills and bakeries could reduce dependence upon a few enormous processors. Small slaughterhouses, dairies, cold stores and food markets could shorten supply chains.

Local authorities could identify productive land before a crisis arrives. Farmers could be helped to supply nearby schools, hospitals and care homes. Communities could develop storage, preserving and distribution arrangements.

Gardens and allotments will not replace commercial farming, but they can add useful production and spread knowledge. Skills that now appear old-fashioned, including growing, preserving, milling, baking and repairing machinery, could become increasingly important.

Preparing for a Different Future

The wheat war is not an isolated emergency. It is an early warning.

The global food system was built during an age of relatively cheap energy, expanding trade and confidence that supplies could always be purchased from somewhere else. That age is becoming less secure.

War may be the immediate cause of the present disruption, but energy, climate, fertiliser and transport are all part of the same problem.

The proper response is not panic. Nor is it the belief that government can insulate us from every international shock.

Britain needs emergency stocks of essential agricultural inputs. It also needs a long-term national food strategy. Above all, it needs practical action within every locality.

We should know where our food can be grown, who can grow it, how it will be processed and how it will reach people if international supplies falter.

Food security begins with fields and farmers. But it also requires functioning local markets, storage buildings, mills, bakeries, workshops, transport and people with the necessary skills.

The wheat war shows us what happens when food becomes a weapon and international supply chains become battlefields.

We cannot prevent every war, drought or trade interruption. We can make ourselves less vulnerable to them.

The time to rebuild local food resilience is before the shortages reach the shops.