Fueled by a chronically weak ability to cultivate enough food for self-sufficiency, Africa has been struggling with food insecurity for some time. The continent’s ability to feed itself has steadily declined since the 1960s, and the continent has therefore had to rely on the global food market and its supply chains to meet Africans’ food demands. However, growing supply chain instability and unprecedentedly high price shocks caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine have accelerated efforts by at least one country – Ethiopia – to induce food self-sufficiency for itself while helping other African countries wean themselves off reliance on the global market.
On February 24th, 2022, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. International organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have already re-adjusted their global growth projections, contending that the effects of the invasion will “propagate far and wide,” worsening the already inflationary global economy. Precipitous increases in the price of commodities like oil, gas, metals, wheat, and corn have been exacerbated by the invasion alongside the sanctions placed on Russia by the international community. Investor faith in the current economy is dwindling as a result as seen by the price rise in long-term sovereign debt instruments like bonds.
Overall, the effects of the conflict have spread globally and are multidimensional. However, one of its most acute consequences for the developing world has been the shocks in global food markets, especially for wheat, barley, corn, and sunflower products.
Russia and Ukraine are the 2nd- and 5th-largest exporters of wheat, respectively. They are essential to the global wheat supply and are relied upon especially by countries who have weak domestic grain production. According to a new UN report, 32% of Africa’s wheat imports originate from Russia, while 12% originate from Ukraine. The same report found that some developing countries including Benin, Egypt, and Sudan rely on these two countries for over three-fourths of their wheat imports.
While the global price of wheat had been slowly rising since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the invasion of Ukraine triggered a massive spike in wheat prices to levels unparalleled since the late-70s. The breakdown of the agricultural supply chain in both Ukraine and Russia can be blamed for this spike. Many of Ukraine’s ports have been bombed and blockaded by Russia, preventing exports. Furthermore, the international regime of tough sanctions on Russia has not only made its process of exporting cumbersome but has harmed its ability to import essential inputs of the agricultural process, like pesticides, seeds, and fertilizers.
The combined price increase and shortage of wheat among other food commodities has worsened food security for Africa, inducing a continent-wide food supply shortage of at least 30 million metric tons. Overall, the crisis has further demonstrated the precarity of the global food supply chain. Spurred on by this fact, recent efforts by Ethiopia have demonstrated its willingness to establish food self-reliance by pushing for agro-industrialization to increase grain output, with the ultimate goal of exporting surplus to other African countries.
Ethiopia has a centuries-long history of food insecurity, with at least one famine occurring each decade between the 15th and 19th centuries – these have been caused not just by environmental factors like drought and pestilence, but by purposeful man-made efforts to weaponize food during civil conflicts. Its most vulnerable communities, those that are defined by agrarian pastoralism, are subject to “frequent calamities, food insecurity, and lack of adequate infrastructure, social services and institutions.” The vast majority of Ethiopians work in agriculture and of them, most rely on subsistence farming – a form of cultivation done purely to sustain oneself and one’s family. One of Ethiopia’s worst famines occurred in the 1980s and was exacerbated by government mismanagement and human rights abuses under the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. After a transition to democracy in the 1990s, successive governments attempted to increase food output. For decades, Ethiopia’s wheat production remained stagnant at low levels, but because of government intervention, output steadily increased.
“Ethiopia provides an important role model for African agriculture,” says Jonathan Said, Director of Sector Practices for Africa at the Tony Blair Institute. “Since the 1990s Ethiopia has prioritized agro-led industrialisation, and this agenda was driven by the Prime Minister himself, consistently since then. The progress on wheat is a result of this. This type of focus and leadership by government is key, and other African nations have taken note.”
Under the leadership of Abiy Ahmed, the new Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018, the government has set the goal of achieving wheat self-sufficiency by 2025. Since he entered office, the country has been able to boost its cultivated areas of wheat production from 50,000 hectares in 2018 to 167,000 hectares in 2021 and to 400,000 hectares in 2022. The international community has praised the government’s efforts, with the African Development Bank calling it an “incredible story of success.” The government has taken a hands-on approach to agricultural development, providing intensive extension support, irrigation development, input supply, and using partly mechanized farming systems.
Ethiopia’s efforts will help the rest of Africa transition, as the country plans on beginning the exportation of wheat to Kenya and Djibouti in 2023. However, the same report cited previously determined that the prospect of substituting Russian and Ukrainian wheat may be undermined by the lack of efficient transport infrastructures and storage capacity. Though this fact remains a clear barrier to food self-sufficiency, African countries have nevertheless made efforts to alleviate some non-physical obstacles to intra-african trade in foodstuffs. For example, the AfCFTA, a new free trade agreement between African Union members,1 will help facilitate the development of regional supply chains. The transition away from an over-reliance on global food supply chains is taking shape in the form of these deals, and Ethiopia’s individual efforts to supply itself and the continent with abundant wheat is part of its long-term development strategy.
1Editor’s note: Read William’s article on the AfCFTA here.
William Gilbert is in his fourth year at McGill University, pursuing a B.A. Joint Honors in Political Science and International Development. He is a staff writer for Catalyst. He is particularly interested in structural transformation for economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Thanks for the good article. One basic correction to be made is, the effort to self-sustain in food by the Ethiopian government is not triggered by the war between Russia and Ukraine. It was started a couple of years before that. Otherwise, it is a good piece. Thanks.
Hello sir, thank you for the feedback. You’re right, Ethiopia’s food self-sufficiency efforts have been ongoing for decades. I made sure to highlight this in the article. The purpose of the article was more to show that Ethiopia’s efforts are being accelerated in the face of the global food crisis caused by the invasion of Ukraine. Some poor wording made this unclear, my apologies. Best.