Highlights

The RF`s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine has lasted for almost 1.5 years now. It has devastating impacts on the people’s lives, economies and food security around the globe. Food commodities prices are still very high: “the FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 127.2 points in April 2023, up 0.6 percent from March. At that level, the Index was 19.7 percent below its level in April 2022, but still 5.2 percent higher than in April 2021”, with many countries facing high food prices inflation “high [food price – from the authors] inflation in almost all low- and middle-income countries, with inflation levels above 5 percent in 94.1 percent of low-income countries, 86 percent of lower-middle-income countries, and 93.0 percent of upper-middle-income countries and many [countries – from the authors] experiencing double-digit inflation. In addition, 87.3 percent of high-income countries are experiencing high food prices inflation.

The most affected countries are in Africa, North America, Latin America, South Asia, Europe, and Central Asia. In real terms, food price inflation exceeded overall inflation (measured as year-on-year change in the overall CPI) in 88.8 percent of the 160 countries for which food CPI and overall CPI indexes are both available”. As of the end of 2022, however, IFPRI states that the major food crisis has been averted due to the Black Sea Grain Initiative, an increase in global humanitarian efforts to mitigate the impacts of the war and record wheat harvests in Canada, the European Union, and Russia.

With the world tackling the crisis with production growth in other regions and export initiative in Ukraine, the future for Ukrainian agriculture looks less and less pretty the longer the war lasts. According to the production experts and the producers themselves, whereas the 2022 sowing season took place with the resources accumulated in 2021, the 2023 and the following production seasons have considerably fewer means. The current paper reviews the 2022 situation and projects the markets development for 2023 and beyond assuming the 2023 status quo and the assumptions presented below. According to the modelling results, some of the sectors will not reach the pre-war levels even after seven years of peace.