Spectres of Famine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provoked widespread trepidation about mass hunger across the African landmass. Wheat provides one-fifth of all the calories consumed by humans on planet earth, and bread riots from the French Revolution (1789–1799) to the Arab Spring of the 2010s have toppled governments and kindled civil wars. So, what happens when a twenty-first-century war of conquest envelops a global bread basket? The media discourse on this point is indeed apoplectic. In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion, Paul Krugman wrote ominously in the New York Times that ‘before the war, Russia and Ukraine produced almost a quarter of the world’s wheat, much of it exported.’ In March 2022, The Economist reported that Black Sea wheat represents ‘29% of international annual sales. And after several poor harvests, frantic buying during the pandemic and supply-chain issues, global stocks are 31% below the five-year average.’ Similar trade statistics are repeated in The Guardian, National Geographic, Financial Times, CNN, and the BBC, even as reports of drought and heat damage in France, India, and the United States deflate hopes that alternative sources can fill the gap. However, interpreting this export disruption as an unprecedented global shortfall of recent origins, rather than a localized, perennial challenge to African supply chains, is deeply flawed.