President Joe Biden on Thursday said there would be food shortages around the world due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It will be real,” he said. “Because both Russia and Ukraine were the breadbasket of Europe, for example, for wheat.”
Food security, along with general humanitarian aid, was one of Biden’s top talking points in three emergency meetings with leaders from NATO, the European Union and the G7. The summits were designed to deal with the invasion of Ukraine.
“We are in the process of working out with our European friends what needs to be done to alleviate concerns about food shortages. We also talked about the significant major US investment, among other things, in terms of meeting humanitarian needs, including food, as we move forward,” he said.
Ukraine is a country with developed agriculture, the main crops of which are winter wheat, spring barley and corn.
The United States, through the Feed the Future initiative, will provide more than $11 billion over the next five years to combat food insecurity and malnutrition around the world—with programs in many countries vulnerable to rising food and fertilizer prices.
A senior administration told reporters at a briefing on Thursday that Russia’s invasion “endangers global food security, especially for vulnerable populations in the Middle East and Africa” as farms are being destroyed.
President Joe Biden has said there will be food shortages around the world due to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Granaries reportedly hit by Russian attack in Uman, Ukraine
The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) warned on Thursday that the war in Ukraine has already led to rising food prices and shortages of staple crops in parts of Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has reduced supplies from the two countries, which together account for about 25% of world wheat exports and 16% of world corn exports, pushing up grain prices on international markets.
Russia is also one of the world’s largest suppliers of fertilizers, prices of which have already risen in the past year, leading to a 30 percent rise in world food prices and a corresponding increase in world hunger.
The European Union on Wednesday offered a $549 million aid package to help food producers in the 27-nation bloc weather the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine.
While the EU is not facing immediate food shortages, the region is a net importer of certain commodities, including forage crops from Ukraine. And European farmers are heavily dependent on Russian fertilizers to grow their crops.
“This vulnerability, combined with high production costs, such as those for fertilizers and fossil fuels, creates problems for farmers and poses a risk of higher food prices,” the commission’s proposal says.
The food aid is part of a larger humanitarian relief plan proposed by the Biden administration in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine.
This includes the United States taking in up to 100,000 refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, the Biden administration announced Thursday.
It is meant to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis going on in Eastern Europe, where nearly 3.5 million Ukrainians have fled the shelled country in one of the biggest refugee crises since World War II.
Refugees poured into Europe, and some even made their way to the southern border of the United States, trying to get into the country that way.
Not only did the Biden administration take in more displaced people, it also announced more than $1 billion in new humanitarian aid funding.
The funding will provide food, shelter, clean water, medical supplies and other forms of assistance, according to the White House.
Ukrainians fleeing a Russian invasion of their homeland wait for a US Customs and Border Protection agent before passing through a United States entry checkpoint in Tijuana, Mexico.
Ukrainians fleeing Russian invasion try to enter US via southern border – Biden administration says it will take in 100,000 refugees
TIJUANA, MEXICO CITY – MARCH 22: A Ukrainian family who fled from Kyiv, Ukraine waits with their luggage before they are allowed to cross the San Ysidro port of entry to the United States seeking asylum
Ukrainians relax in an exhibition hall turned into a refugee center in Nadarzyn, near Warsaw, Poland – almost 3.5 million Ukrainians have fled their country
Refugees from Ukraine stand in line waiting for further transport at the Medyka border crossing, after crossing the Ukrainian-Polish border
President Biden will review the refugee situation on Saturday during his visit to Poland.
Poland, which shares some 300 miles of border with Ukraine, has taken in the majority of the refugees—about 2.1 million—but the nearby countries of Romania and Hungary have also taken in many Ukrainians.
Biden has been criticized for not doing more to ease the crisis. He promised to help.
“I will welcome Ukrainian refugees,” he said from the White House on March 11.
Regarding refugees, a senior administration official said the US will focus on Ukrainians who already have families in America and said they expect most Ukrainians to want to stay in Eastern Europe in the hope that they can return to their homes.
“We are working, in particular, to expand and develop new programs with a focus on accepting Ukrainians who have family members in the United States,” the official said at a briefing with reporters.
“We continue to expect that the majority of displaced Ukrainians, citizens, will want to stay in neighboring countries or in other EU countries where they can have families and where there are already large diaspora communities, in the hope that they will be able to return home soon,” the official said. added.
To circumvent the 125,000 refugee limit, the US will use the full range of legal avenues, including the US Refugee Admission Program, others will come on family visas or other procedures known as humanitarian parole.
The exact details of how the refugees would be brought to the States – both legally and logistically – were not clear.
The administration said efforts will also focus on particularly vulnerable populations such as women, children, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTQI+) people, and persons with disabilities.
The Biden administration will also provide $1 billion in humanitarian aid.
A Ukrainian citizen shows documents to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials before being allowed to cross the U.S. border in Tijuana.
A Ukrainian refugee boy plays at the Humanitarian Aid Center at the Ptak Warsaw Expo in Nadarzyn, near Warsaw.