Introduce the No Fly Zone in the skies over Ukraine! Every day, we the Ukrainians ask for it all over the world. These are the Ukrainians who  through their work on their own soil have provided bread for the whole world.
But on February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation started a bloodthirsty war on our land.
Russia's military invasion of Ukraine has not only led to a mass outflow of refugees from the country, our citizens being shot or killed, the destruction of large and small settlements, but experts say it could lead to the deepest food crisis in modern human history.
So, according to the latest analytical material of the Kyiv School of Economics - Russia's invasion of Ukraine could threaten global food security and starve hundreds of millions worldwide. Wheat and corn account for almost 30% of all calories, i.e. all food (in its various forms). consumed in the world. Ukraine and Russia together export about 30% of all wheat and about 18% of all corn in the world. At the same time, wheat is a key commodity for global food security, and Ukraine alone exports about 10% of all wheat and almost 16% of all corn in the world.
KSE experts emphasize that more than 400 million people in the world depend on grain supplies from Ukraine. Therefore, the war in Ukraine poses a challenge to global food security, which is particularly acute today in the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Yemen, Israel, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Libya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey), which are the main buyers of wheat and corn on world markets. The people of most of these countries traditionally suffer from food shortages if they do not suffer from hunger already, namely:
in Egypt, more than 32.5% of people live below the poverty line, which makes malnutrition and hunger a pressing problem in Egypt;
in Yemen, the level of malnutrition among women and children remains one of the highest in the world: 1.2 million pregnant or breastfeeding women and 2.3 million children under the age of 5 need treatment for acute malnutrition;
in Indonesia, 14.3% of the population lives below the poverty line, and 19.4 million people cannot meet their food needs;
in Bangladesh, 40 million people are left without food and 11 million are suffering from acute hunger;
in Ethiopia, 5.9 million people suffer from acute food shortages;
in Lebanon, 22% of households are short of food; in Libya, 83% of people live on less than $1.25 a day, while another 699,000 people are undernourished;
in Pakistan, 20.5% of the population are malnourished, 44% of children under 5 are retarded;
in Iraq, 2.4 million people are acutely short of food and livelihoods.
At the moment, grain exports from Ukraine have been suspended, whichт in turn threatens the world's food shortage. If the war continues, Ukraine will not be able to supply the world with the remaining 6 million tons of wheat and 15 million tons of corn.
Thus, in conditions of war, a deficit of production and exports is inevitable. According to the KSE analysis, today winter crops (in particular, wheat) in Ukraine are sown and are in good condition, but without timely spring fertilization, yields will fall significantly. February and early March were crucial, and it now appears that sufficient wheat crops will be harvested if the war ends in the next week or two. But due to hostilities in most regions, this is physically impossible.
As a result, experts note:
1. Ukraine and Russia will not be able to carry out export operations in the next 2-3 years. Due to the projected significant reduction in yields, exports from Ukraine and Russia in the next marketing year will be unlikely. However, if the war ends in the next few weeks, some exports will still be possible. In the worst case (if the war continues), world markets will lose about 60 million tons of wheat, 38 million tons of corn and 10.5 million tons of barley, which means that world grain exports will fall sharply. Prospects for oilseed harvest (soybeans and rapeseed) and vegetable oil production in the region only reinforce the negative outlook. It will take at least 2-3 years to return to the pre-war level, and the lost grain will be difficult to compensate for at the expense of other world producers.
2. A significant increase in world grain prices has already begun. In a short period of time, in just one week of the Russian war in Ukraine, the price of wheat rose by 26%, or almost $85 per ton. In the mid term, the cessation of exports from Ukraine and Russia in 2022 may lead to an increase in world market prices by 30%.
3. There is a great global humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of millions of people are threatened by food shortages and a major humanitarian crisis that threatens not only Ukraine but also many low-income grain importers.
That is why the people's deputies of Ukraine - members of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy say - the Ukrainian agrarian community is stronger than ever, but the daily presence of the Russian invader on our land costs not only Ukrainians but also threatens hundreds of millions of people with hunger all over the world.