The War in Ukraine and Food Security in Eastern Europe

Abstract

This dispatch outlines some of the immediate consequences and long-term challenges posed by the Ukraine war on food security and production systems in Eastern Europe. We draw particular attention to the food aid and provisioning realities around many million (and increasing) numbers of Ukrainian refugees, and the current lack of systemic, government-coordinated responses to the humanitarian crisis. Further, we outline the distinct forms of agriculture characterizing Eastern Europe, notably, the short supply chains and farming networks that are socially and environmentally unique and valuable, and are a result of the persistence of smaller, family-led farms. However, these farms and farmers are facing increasingly difficult times as a result of inflation, rising fuel prices, rationing, climate stress, export bans, and now large numbers of refugees arriving to some already very poor rural areas. We highlight the need for these multiple stresses to be discussed together, for their consequences on food production in the short and long term, especially as the effects of the war extend beyond the region. These stresses include, in the immediate, a lack (and a lack of reliability on) of state aid and infrastructures for refugee hosts and food aid organizations and, in the longer term, persisting EU-policy and market pushes toward intensification that will greatly challenge the smallholder system in Eastern Europe.

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“…Therefore, the population of these countries is more vulnerable to rising food prices due to lower household incomes. In addition, the authors deepened the scientific basis for the study of threats to the stability of the EU agri-food markets due to the disruption of supply links, as well as the increase in food prices as a result of energy sanctions against the russian federation due to the invasion of Ukraine, initiated by European and American colleagues (Kovács et al, 2022). At the same time, it should also be emphasized that the scientific community is fully aware of the long-term consequences of the military conflict on the territory of Ukraine.…”

“…Thus, global and European food markets have been negatively affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic . In 2022, due to the russian invasion of Ukraine, there was a disruption of supply chains in the EU agrifood markets, and experts recorded a significant increase in food prices due to the increase in energy prices (Kovács et al, 2022).…”

Food Solidarity Battles: The Case of Poland After the Russian Aggression on Ukraine

“…Research articles (Kovacs et al, 2022), as well as media reports (Kozak, 2022) on food aid to Ukrainian refugees, point to the challenges arising from an insuffi cient presence of the Polish state and its agencies, especially in the fi rst weeks of the refugee infl ux. Poland fi rst passed a law on assistance to citizens of Ukraine in connection with the armed confl ict in that country on 12 th March 2022, and it was referred to as the "Special Law" (Library of Congress, 2022) but the role of the state in the coordination of refugee matters, i.e., providing food and shelter, was still minimal.…”

Consequences of Recent Crises on the FLW Consumer Behaviour: A National Wide Representative Research—The Case of Romania

“…Unpredictable situations, such as health crises [38,41], natural disasters due to climate change and their outcomes-e.g., Fukushima [42][43][44], financial crises-e.g., the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy [45,46], and military conflicts such as the Russian-Ukrainian war [47,48] may cause major disruptions in supply chains and generate direct repercussions on the duration and modalities of food distribution. All this, together with inflation in raw materials and energy [38], in addition to producing multi-sectoral and/or trans-regional crises, lead to major changes in the consumption habits of affected populations [49].…”