The ongoing saga of the privatization the Canadian Wheat Board

The certification of this class action will allow the courts to hear the case of potentially 70,000 Canadian farmers. These are farmers who sold grain through the Canadian Wheat Board and did not receive full payment for that sale.

These activist farmers are still standing, urging us to listen to the backstory and why this class action suit could potentially impact each of us.


by Lois Ross

RABBLE.CA

April 26, 2022

I think it is fair to say that family farmers are among one of the most hopeful, resilient, and persevering occupations.

I am not romanticizing the role of the farmer by any stretch — just stating what I have observed over the last several decades. Stamina!

One example is the longstanding legal battles waged by farmers over the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB).

Earlier this month, the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, certified a Class Action lawsuit brought by Manitoba farmer Andrew Dennis against the Government of Canada and G3 Canada Ltd. The lawsuit alleges financial irregularities occurred during the privatization of the Canadian Wheat Board.

“We will, at long last, have an opportunity to ask the Court to rule on whether the Government of Canada or Minister Ritz unlawfully manipulated CWB accounts, depriving farmers of money rightfully owing to them,” stated Andrew Dennis, in an April 9th media release announcing the successful certification of the class action.

The certification of this class action lawsuit has been a long time coming — close to 10 years. It is only the first step in the actual lawsuit. Certification means that Dennis, on behalf of these farmers which forms a legally recognized class, has the right to pursue this lawsuit. The lawsuit itself can now proceed.

Throughout the past decade there have been several dizzying legal twists and turns. There have also been several appeals, delays, denials and various forms of stonewalling, but these activist farmers are still standing, urging us to listen to the backstory and why this class action suit could potentially impact each of us.

Meanwhile, neither the former federal Conservative government, or the current federal Liberal government, have wanted to fess-up to what most of us watching this show already know or, at the very least, suspect.

The saga of the dismantling of the CWB is covered in a rabble.ca column which I wrote in 2019. Read it here for a detailed picture of the importance of the CWB, the legal issues, and how the loss of the CWB is impacting farm incomes and family farms.

There is also a timeline on the CWB Class Action where you can read the Statement of Claim and the April 5 certification of the class action.

Dennis is the Manitoba farmer who is the face of this lawsuit. He is accompanied by the Friends of the Canadian Wheat Board (FCWB) and potentially tens of thousands of grain producers. This suit is the first step in the one remaining lawsuit among the several that were pursued in various jurisdictions across Canada by farmers challenging the privatization of the CWB. Along the way there have been wins and losses.

The certification of this class action will allow the courts to hear the case of potentially 70,000 Canadian farmers. These are farmers who sold grain through the CWB between August 1, 2010 and July 31, 2012 and did not receive full payment for that sale.

The dismantling of the CWB shows just how easily governments intent on pursuing their own agendas, often in the name of corporate concentration and privatization, bend the rules. They exercise authority through very questionable methods despite being holders of a public office and public trust, all the while insisting on the legitimacy of their actions.

It takes hope, and yes stamina, to avoid throwing up your hands in frustration and walk away.

The FCWB is a coalition of farmers and other Canadians who support a farmer-controlled CWB. In its April 9th media release about the court granting certification, it explained the crux of the lawsuit:

“The lawsuit alleges former Minister of Agriculture Gerry Ritz committed misfeasance in public office by unlawfully sheltering $145,000,000 of farmer’s money into an account that could be transferred to the Wheat Board’s purchasers in connection with the Wheat Board’s 2012 privatization. The Manitoba Court of Appeal accepted in a 2020 ruling that if this money had not been sheltered by the Government, it would have been paid to farmers. The claim also alleges that the CWB is liable to farmers by not paying them the full amount required under their contracts.”

-FCWB

Essentially the lawsuit calls for farmers to receive $145 million in moneys transferred from the CWB pooling accounts into a CWB contingency fund, along with $5.9 million used in the CWB transition to privatization. The lawsuit also calls for $10 million in punitive damages plus interest — an amount estimated, after 10 years, to be close to $190 million today.

In the end, the suit of $145 million might average out to an estimated $2,000 for each farmer. Exact amounts are dependent on the volume of grain each farmer delivered to the board during the 2011-2012 timeframe.

Meanwhile, just as importantly, and perhaps more-so many might argue, are the actions taken by then Minister of Agriculture Gerry Ritz. This is where this class action lawsuit could potentially affect each one of us and how we are governed.

The lawsuit alleges that the Minister of Agriculture, who through the use of Orders in Council, transferred farm payments into a general contingency fund, instead of paying out farmer contracts. In his ruling certifying the class action, the Justice’s clarity on the common issues startles. Read the decision here and skip to page 20 to read about the issues related to “misfeasance of public office” by the then Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

By the way, misfeasance is defined, more specifically, as the misuse of power; misbehaviour in office; the wrongful and injurious exercise of lawful authority.

Basically, the issue at the core of the class action lawsuit is whether then Minister of Agriculture withheld CWB contract payment to farmers using Orders in Council that overrode legislation passed by Parliament. Did the Minister of Agriculture, Gerry Ritz, have the authority to do so, and did he do so knowingly, and willfully?

As Stewart Wells, Saskatchewan farmer and chair of the FCWB notes in a recent interview for this column:

“There are very important legal questions to be solved, related to the nature of authoritarian governments. This case will turn on whether or not the Orders in Council that Gerry Ritz, then Minister of Agriculture and the rest of the Harper cabinet passed in October of 2011 were legal. These Orders in Council directed the Canadian Wheat Board to put every nickel they could find into the contingency fund –- a fund to be used for whatever they wanted it to be used for later on. If a minister of the government can override legislation passed in Parliament with just a Cabinet Order then you are in a real authoritarian system and laws and legislation are meaningless at that point — that is what we believe was done in October of 2011.”

-Wells, Chair FCWB

While this class action lawsuit is now certified and will be heard in court, there are still miles to go before final outcomes are known.

Meanwhile, Stewart Wells and the coalition of members belonging to the FCWB, understand their role and the importance of persistence on fundamental issues such as this one. Wells explains:

“Do we live in a democracy or some sort of authoritarian dictatorship, and does anybody have the temerity and perseverance to bring this kind of case forward and get it in front of the courts? Because if nobody had challenged this — and it would have been easy for all of the farmers just to walk away and say ‘well they did it and that is the end of it’ — But at some point you do not have a functioning democracy if people are not willing to stand up to have these matters adjudicated in a court.”

-Wells

By certifying this class action, Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Martin has directed that the questions and actions taken in October of 2011 surrounding the CWB finances must be answered and accounted for.

Wells emphasizes: “We have maintained for over a decade that the Government of Canada and CWB took money that belonged to farmers and sold it as part of the asset base taken over by the Crown and then provided to G3 Canada Ltd. the nominal legal successor to the CWB, and owned by the multinational Bunge and the Government of Saudi Arabia.”

For updates on the lawsuit, follow the Canadian Wheat Board Alliance.

Russia’s war heats up cooking oil prices in global squeeze

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, AYSE WIETING and KELVIN CHAN

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A man uses cooking oil to fry Mandazi, a type of fried bread, on a street in the low-income Kibera neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya, Wednesday, April 20, 2022. Global cooking oil prices have been rising since the COVID-19 pandemic began and Russia's war in Ukraine has sent costs spiralling. It is the latest fallout to the global food supply from the war, with Ukraine and Russia the world’s top exporters of sunflower oil. And it's another rising cost pinching households and businesses as inflation soars.

 (AP Photo/Khalil Senosi)


ISTANBUL (AP) — For months, Istanbul restaurant Tarihi Balikca tried to absorb the surging cost of the sunflower oil its cooks use to fry fish, squid and mussels.

But in early April, with oil prices nearly four times higher than they were in 2019, the restaurant finally raised its prices. Now, even some longtime customers look at the menu and walk away.

“We resisted. We said, ’Let’s wait a bit, maybe the market will improve, maybe (prices) will stabilize. But we saw that there is no improvement,” said Mahsun Aktas, a waiter and cook at the restaurant. “The customer cannot afford it.”

Global cooking oil prices have been rising since the COVID-19 pandemic began for multiple reasons, from poor harvests in South America to virus-related labor shortages and steadily increasing demand from the biofuel industry. The war in Ukraine — which supplies nearly half of the world’s sunflower oil, on top of the 25% from Russia — has interrupted shipments and sent cooking oil prices spiraling.

It is the latest fallout to the global food supply from Russia’s war, and another rising cost pinching households and businesses as inflation soars. The conflict has further fueled already high food and energy costs, hitting the poorest people hardest.

The food supply is particularly at risk as the war has disrupted crucial grain shipments from Ukraine and Russia and worsened a global fertilizer crunch that will mean costlier, less abundant food. The loss of affordable supplies of wheat, barley and other grains raises the prospect of food shortages and political instability in Middle Eastern, African and some Asian countries where millions rely on subsidized bread and cheap noodles.

Vegetable oil prices hit a record high in February, then increased another 23% in March, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Soybean oil, which sold for $765 per metric ton in 2019, was averaging $1,957 per metric ton in March, the World Bank said. Palm oil prices were up 200% and are set to go even higher after Indonesia, one of the world’s top producers, bans cooking oil exports starting Thursday to protect domestic supply.

Some supermarkets in Turkey have imposed limits on the amount of vegetable oil households can purchase after concerns about shortages sparked panic-buying. Some stores in Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom also have set limits. German shoppers are posting photos on social media of empty shelves where sunflower and canola oil usually sit. In a recent tweet, Kenya’s main power company warned that thieves are draining toxic fluid from electrical transformers and reselling it as cooking oil.

“We will just have to boil everything now, the days of the frying pan are gone,” said Glaudina Nyoni, scanning prices in a supermarket in Harare, Zimbabwe, where vegetable oil costs have almost doubled since the outbreak of the war. A 2-liter bottle now costs up to $9.

Emiwati, who runs a food stall in Jakarta, Indonesia, said she needs 24 liters of cooking oil each day. She makes nasi kapau, traditional mixed rice that she serves with dishes like deep-fried spiced beef jerky. Since January, she’s had trouble ensuring that supply, and what she does buy is much more expensive. Profits are down, but she fears losing customers if she raises prices.

“I am sad,” said Emiwati, who only uses one name. “We accept the price of cooking oil increasing, but we cannot increase the price of the foods we sell.”

The high cost of cooking oil is partly behind recent protests in Jakarta. Indonesia has imposed price caps on palm oil at home and will ban exports, creating a new squeeze worldwide. Palm oil has been sought as an alternative for sunflower oil and is used in many products, from cookies to cosmetics.

The Associated Press has documented human rights abuses in an industry whose environmental effects have been decried for years.

Across the world in London, Yawar Khan, who owns Akash Tandoori restaurant, said a 20-liter drum of cooking oil cost him 22 pounds ($28) a few months ago; it’s now 38 pounds ($49).

“We cannot pass all the price (rises) to the consumer, that will cause a catastrophe, too,” said Khan, who also struggles with rising costs for meat, spices, energy and labor.

Big companies are feeling the pain, too. London-based Unilever — maker of Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise — said it has contracts for critical ingredients like palm oil for the first half of the year. But it warned investors that its costs could rise significantly in the second half.

Cargill, a global food giant that makes vegetable oils, said its customers are changing formulas and experimenting with different kinds of oils at a higher rate than usual. That can be tricky because oils have different properties; olive oil burns at a lower temperature than sunflower oil, for example, while palm oil is more viscous.

Prices could moderate by this fall, when farmers in the Northern Hemisphere harvest corn, soybeans and other crops, said Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. But there’s always the danger of bad weather. Last year, drought pummeled Canada’s canola crop and Brazil’s soybean crop, while heavy rains affected palm oil production in Malaysia.

Farmers may be hesitant to plant enough crops to make up for shortfalls from Ukraine or Russia because they don’t know when the war might end, said Steve Mathews, co-head of research at Gro Intelligence, an agriculture data and analytics company.

“If there were a cease-fire or something like that, we would see prices decline in the short run for sure,” he said.

Longer term, the crisis may lead countries to reconsider biofuel mandates, which dictate the amount of vegetable oils that must be blended with fuel in a bid to reduce emissions and energy imports. In the U.S., for example, 42% of soybean oil goes toward biofuel production, Glauber said. Indonesia recently delayed a plan to require 40% palm oil-based biodiesel, while the European Commission said it would support member states that choose to reduce their biofuel mandates.

In the meantime, consumers and businesses are struggling.

Harry Niazi, who owns The Famous Olley’s Fish Experience in London, says he used to pay around 22 pounds ($29) for a 20-liter jug of sunflower oil; the cost recently jumped to 42.50 pounds ($55). Niazi goes through as many as eight jugs per week.

But what worries him even more than rising prices is the thought of running out of sunflower oil altogether. He’s thinking of selling his truck and using the cash to stock up on oil.

“It’s very, very scary, and I don’t know how the fish and chips industry is going to cope. I really don’t,” he said.

So far, Niazi has held off on raising prices because he doesn’t want to lose customers.

At Jordan’s Grab n’ Go, a small restaurant in Dyersburg, Tennessee, known for its fried cheeseburgers, owner Christine Coronado also agonized about price increases. But with costs up 20% across the board — and cooking oil prices nearly tripling since she opened in 2018 — she finally hiked prices in April.

“You hate to raise prices on people, but it’s just that costs are so much higher than they were a couple of years ago,” she said.

___

Chan reported from London. AP journalists Edna Tarigan and Fadlan Syam in Jakarta, Indonesia; Farai Mutsaka in Harare, Zimbabwe; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey; Mehmet Guzel in Istanbul; Anne D’Innocenzio in New York; and Sebabatso Mosamo and Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg contributed.

Crypto Bros Are Trying to Buy an Island in the Pacific

Crypto millionaires are attempting to buy an island in the Southwest Pacific. It’s the latest in a long line of schemes by libertarians asserting the rights of private capital above all else.

Tourist bungalows on Iririki island, Vanuatu.

 (Phillip Capper / Wikimedia Commons)

BY RAYMOND CRAIB

JACOBIN

04.22.2022

Utopian thinking is everywhere out of favor, except in the libertarian fantasies of crypto enthusiasts who dream of a world free from the regulatory state, law, and all other forms of external authority. Hucksterism and hostility to collective life are this movement’s defining features. The worldview underlying it is embodied nowhere more literally than in the schemes to exit from the territorial jurisdiction of the nation-state prevalent throughout the history of libertarianism. Crypto luminaries have even sought to buy and govern islands, using oceans to separate themselves from taxes and democracy.

Satoshi Island — named after the alleged creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, and located in the southwest Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu — is the most recent creation of crypto’s venture capitalists. “A real-life private island dedicated to the crypto community,” reads the promotional material. Measuring some eight hundred acres (just over one square mile), Satoshi Island is at this point almost entirely rainforest. Its main attraction: a rare species of giant coconut crabs. Other than flora and fauna, Satoshi boasts a small coastal clearing and a large house on its western edge facing the archipelago’s largest island, Santo. If plans go ahead, the tropical paradise will not remain pristine for long. Would-be crypto colonizers hope to transform the island into a “sustainable smart city.”

Much of the island’s promotional material, with its claims of private ownership and Satoshi citizenship, is misleading. Citizenship, for example, suggests Satoshi Island will be its own state and can confer political rights to its inhabitants. That is not the case. Rather, citizenship in this instance is a catchy way of acknowledging that you own one of the 21,000 Satoshi Island NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and thus can access the island community. But you would still need to hold a valid passport from another country in order to first enter Vanuatu, and no form of Vanuatu citizenship is attached to the island NFT.While the archipelago’s native inhabitants fought for independence, the libertarians advocated a very different form of self-determination . . . a new country governed entirely through contractual, market relations.

One could, in this broad sense, count oneself a citizen of Satoshi Island in the same way that one could, in a sense, count oneself a citizen of Disneyland. Even the use of the phrase “private island” is a misnomer. Since independence in 1980, all land in Vanuatu is held by custom owners — native Ni-Vanuatu (native inhabitants of the islands) — who can lease but not sell land. It is not a “private island” because foreign investors will not be able to enjoy freehold ownership. Even the island’s name is more complicated than the promoters would like to let on.

The brains behind the project, Anthony Welch, a retired property investor who now lives in Vanuatu, renamed the island, in grand imperial fashion, two years ago. Vanuatu’s government has pointed out that such an act has no force of law or real significance. According to the country’s director general of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, in order to formally change the name — which is actually Le-Tharo — the government’s Place Name Committee would need to approve such request. This hasn’t happened. Satoshi Island is, for all intents and purposes, a fantasy island.
Hijacking Independence

All of this could be filed away under the growing folder of goofy grifts that characterize efforts to create private countries, all too often involving cryptocurrency advocates. The archetype for these libertarian adventures is Burning Man; more often they are closer to the infamous Fyre Festival. There is, however, more at stake in these schemes then the money of naive investors. The language of citizenship and private property may be disingenuous, but it points toward how libertarian schemes dream of asserting the rights of private capital over those of sovereign states and their populations.

Although the distinctly modern form that these encroachments have taken may seem new, they have a long history, even in Vanuatu itself. In the 1970s, a group of US-based libertarians looked to Vanuatu — known as the New Hebrides and jointly colonized by the British and the French at the time — as a site to create a new country.


While the archipelago’s native inhabitants fought for independence, the libertarians advocated a very different form of self-determination: the creation of a new country governed entirely through contractual, market relations. Inspired by the fictions of Ayn Rand and the myth of Robinson Crusoe, men such as Nevada coin dealer and land developer Michael Oliver, University of Southern California philosophy professor John Hospers, Rand’s former acolyte and paramour Nathaniel Branden, and international finance guru Harry Schultz founded the Phoenix Foundation with the hopes of forging their own private archipelago.

Fantasies of libertarian exit from society were not uncommon at the time. The 1960s in the United States was as much the heyday of market libertarianism as it was of New Left anti-capitalism. Fears of demographic, ecological, and monetary collapse, combined with anxieties over the activities of social movements seeking racial, gender, and economic justice and redress, hastened efforts to find ways to abandon the sinking ship of state and to start anew elsewhere. But where?Given the uncertainties that would accompany processes of decolonization, libertarian exiters saw an opportunity to pursue individual self-determination in the very places struggling against colonial rule.

In seeking new places for a new country, exiters found their efforts frustrated by the territorial realities of state sovereignty. They soon turned to new far-away locales in which to realize their utopian dreams. Islands have long served as the basis for libertarian political ecology — the ideal space upon which the drama of individualism, of man alone, could be staged — but more important, perhaps, is that Oceania and the Caribbean were places of incipient decolonization.

Michael Oliver, one of the foremost exit advocates of the period and author of both A New Constitution for a New Country (1968) and the Capitalist Country Newsletter (1968–1970), made this clear:


A surprising number of nearly uninhabited, yet quite suitable places for establishing a new country still exist. . . . Many such places are scarcely developed colonies whose governmental or other activities are of little or no concern at all to their “mother” countries. There will be little problem in purchasing the land, or in having the opportunity to conduct affairs on a free enterprise basis from the very beginning.

Oliver was observant. This was, after all, the high point of decolonization. United Nations Resolution 1514 on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples enshrined national self-determination as a fundamental right of colonized peoples. Given the uncertainties that would accompany processes of decolonization, libertarian exiters saw an opportunity to pursue individual self-determination in the very places struggling against colonial rule. The ugly and ironic perversion of Resolution 1514 should not be overlooked: in the era of self-determination, selfish-determination arrived in the Southwest Pacific.

Oliver had garnered some hard-earned experience at countrymaking. With support from wheat and housing magnate Willard Garvey, horologist and yachtsman Seth Atwood, and famed investor John Templeton, Oliver had first tried to build an island on an atoll south of Tonga. Tongan assertions of territorial water rights ended the project abruptly in 1972. They then sought to colonize, rather than build, an island by plotting to invade Abaco in the Bahamas. Although allied with an English lord, an American arms merchant, and three ex-CIA agents, Oliver’s efforts failed when Abaconian supporters withdrew and the FBI intervened. The Phoenix Foundation thus turned to the New Hebridean island of Santo, a place where Oliver had previously made contact with a chief named Jimmy Stevens.Masses of working people . . . worried that a transfer of power from colonial to national rule would constitute little more than a shift from external to internal colonialism.

By 1975 New Hebridean independence appeared not only possible, but probable. The British wanted out; the French held slim hopes of maintaining some presence in the archipelago. New Hebrideans themselves led the way to independence, through the Santo-based movement known as Nagriamel and the largely Anglophone Vanua’aku Pati (VP) — led by Anglican priests and intellectuals such as Walter Lini, Barak Sope, and Grace Mera Molisa — which formed in the early 1970s and drew inspiration from the examples of Ghana, Tanzania, and the United States’ Black Power movement.
Failed Rebellions

The VP and Nagriamel should have been natural allies. They shared many commitments: land to Ni-Vanuatu, the end of colonial rule, and self-determination. Up to this point, they had hardly been rivals. And yet Jimmy Stevens turned away from the VP and toward the Phoenix Foundation. Why? For one, the VP’s base was in the Anglophone Protestant church, which often found itself at odds with those in Nagriamel who tended to come from the bush and embraced kastom (custom), what anthropologist Margaret Jolly defines as a “self-conscious perpetuation of ancestral ways and resistance to European values and practices.”

Stevens equated custom with bush people, but leaders in the VP understood that the equation was not so simple. The Phoenix Foundation had mobilized around the idea of custom to further its own agenda and to cultivate a lasting political relationship with Stevens. But beyond custom, what Stevens and Nagriamel feared most is that they would not be directing their own destiny once independence arrived, and they chafed against what they perceived as second-class treatment by the Anglophone-dominated VP and its educated and politically cosmopolitan leaders.


Such concerns characterized struggles over decolonization in many places around the globe as the masses of working people, as well as ethnic and linguistic minorities, worried that a transfer of power from colonial to national rule would constitute little more than a shift from external to internal colonialism. Stevens proffered an alternative: drawing upon a certain cartographic logic, he emphasized that the New Hebrides was “an artificial creation, a colonial convenience,” and thus he would create an “autonomous, self-governing region or province of NaGriamel as part of a New Hebrides Confederation . . . based on Melanesian traditions.”

In order to pursue secession, Stevens relied on his libertarian allies and incorporated their ideological language. Warnings of communist influences, of taxation, and of VP shenanigans appeared with regularity in Stevens’s rhetoric, and the slogan “Individual Rights for All” began appearing on the Nagriamel flag. Eventually, with the Phoenix Foundation’s financial and logistical support, Stevens and Nagriamel launched a rebellion to secede from the new state of Vanuatu in 1980. That rebellion ended with death and displacement.

Stevens was sentenced to a long prison term and branded a traitor, even as he mourned the death of a son, shot during the rebellion’s suppression. His coleaders also served stints in prison, one of whom died from tetanus at the beginning of his sentence. Meanwhile, the collaborators in the Phoenix Foundation watched from a distant shore and then, like the British and the French, went home.
A Free Trade Zone

In 1995 Oliver returned to Vanuatu in a joint venture with Romanian economist Stefan Mandel. Mandel had managed to game the lottery system in the 1990s by purchasing every possible combination of tickets for the Virginia lottery’s $27 million jackpot. He had convinced investors to loan him money to purchase all the combinations, at the cost of some $7 million, in exchange for a share of the winnings. “I knew that I would win one first prize, six second prizes, 132 third prizes and thousands of minor prizes,” Mandel bragged. He pulled in nearly $20 million, but his investors saw little return on their investment after taxes, reimbursements, and Mandel’s appropriation of nearly $2 million as a “consulting fee.”

Because of Mandel, the US lottery system no longer allows people to fill in their own tickets. In addition, they have expanded the possible number of configurations to offset the possibility of another Mandel. In the late 1990s, Oliver and Mandel worked with the Israeli Mondragon group to try to create a free trade zone (FTZ) on Big Bay on Santo. In a subversive twist, the group took its name from the highly successful Mondragón cooperatives of the Basque region in Spain, but with vastly different aims in mind. Rather than creating workers’ cooperatives that provide an array of economic and social services, the Israeli Mondragon group sought a ninety-nine-year lease to create an economic and cultural enclave free of taxes, customs duties, and import/export regulations.

The free trade zone would have had its own postal service, currency, and offshore financial center. The effort initially moved forward, although Oliver left after a falling out with Mandel. In any case, it did not end well. In late 1999 and early 2000, Vanuatu’s Council of Ministers and its Foreign Investment Review Board approved the project, but it quickly foundered after an ombudsman investigation in early 2001 determined the deal was corrupt.

Five years later, in 2006, US ambassador to Papua New Guinea Robert Fitts reported to the United States Pacific Command:


The Vanuatu Minister of Lands [Maxime Carlot Korman] recently signed an MOU with an obscure group of American investors to consider establishing a free port with an autonomous government. This closely parallels a 1980 attempt by the Phoenix Foundation which was only ended by bringing in PNG troops (ref A). The 1980 version would have had the powers to issue currency, passports, and was supposed to have featured untaxed and unregulated free flow of capital. (C) Ambassador learned Sept 6 from the Vanuatu Deputy Prime Minister that many of the same American figures are behind the current effort.

At least one of those figures was Michael Oliver.

The MOU went nowhere. Memories of Oliver linger. Claims circulated that he was in Santo in 2015, at the age of eighty-seven, and were met with fanfare; they turned out to be false. But now, as in the 1970s, there are male chiefs and Ni-Vanuatu with rights to custom land who want to see it developed, and they remember his name. Nagriamel endorsed a 2019 plan to create a free trade zone on Santo. The desires and needs are as real as the differences of opinion among custom landowners. Some counsel development, while others counsel against it. Some want free trade zones and to lease land because of the promise of jobs and a potentially improved quality of life; others are concerned that FTZs constitute little more than a land grab and will bring minimal benefits to local communities. Such concerns are not new. The route to independence, as well as what it would look like, was intensely contested among Ni-Vanuatu, and the question of land rights is central to such debates.

Prior to the 1980 rebellion on Santo, a French official tried to explain why American speculators had targeted the New Hebrides in the 1970s. He concluded that they were looking to reproduce life as it was in “Guatemala in the good old days.” It is an unnerving indictment. As the official surely knew, the landowners’ belle epoque that preceded Guatemala’s democratic revolution in 1944 had been characterized by feudal lords and “their” indigenous serfs, wealthy landowners and indebted tenants, capricious rule and unquestioned submission. That schemes arose to resettle Vietnamese refugees on Santo as unpaid laborers suggests that the characterization is not necessarily an exaggeration.

The French official’s observation was a self-serving, exculpatory barb designed to forgive his own country’s colonial legacies, but it was also a sharp recognition of what lay just under the surface of the libertarian rhetoric and market idealism. Rather than a brave new world of widespread freedom, Vanuatu might have become little more than a patchwork landscape of private fiefdoms worked by a dispossessed class of Ni-Vanuatu. Little more, that is, than a Melanesian banana republic.

Exactly what free trade zones and crypto paradises — if they come to pass — hold in store for Vanuatu now is unclear. But the efforts from the 1960s and 1970s should give us pause, as should more recent libertarian private-country schemes. Over the past decade, the Seasteading Institute has sought out locations to colonize, beginning initially with the “high seas” and continuing more recently with a Tahitian lagoon and the coastal waters of Panama. A repurposed cruise ship, christened by its cryptocurrency-enthusiast owners “Satoshi,” floated around the Circum-Caribbean for a while with similar private country aspirations.

Bitcoin disaster capitalists, rebranded as the Puertopians, descended on Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria with promises of charity, wealth, and progress. Self-professed “radical social entrepreneurs” competed with former Ronald Reagan administration officials to develop free private cities and special economic zones in Honduras, with the blessing of an illegal regime that came to power through a coup d’état. These may be only the most visible of the varied projects underway. But at least thus far, all of these initiatives have floundered in the face of understandable opposition by communities that see such schemes for what they are: colonization, real estate speculation, land grabbing, and an assault on democracy and national self-determination.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raymond Craib is a professor of history at Cornell University and the author of the forthcoming Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit, From the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age (PM Press/Spectre, 2022).

Russian war worsens fertilizer crunch, risking food supplies

By GEOFFREY KAVITI, CHINEDU ASADU and PAUL WISEMAN

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Farmers offload livestock manure from a truck, that will be used to fertilize crops due to the increased cost of fertilizer that they say they now can't afford to purchase, in Kiambu, near Nairobi, in Kenya Thursday, March 31, 2022. Russia's war in Ukraine has pushed up fertilizer prices that were already high, made scarce supplies rarer still and squeezed farmers, especially those in the developing world struggling to make a living. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)


KIAMBU COUNTY, Kenya (AP) — Monica Kariuki is about ready to give up on farming. What is driving her off her 10 acres of land outside Nairobi isn’t bad weather, pests or blight — the traditional agricultural curses — but fertilizer: It costs too much.

Despite thousands of miles separating her from the battlefields of Ukraine, Kariuki and her cabbage, corn and spinach farm are indirect victims of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. The war has pushed up the price of natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilizer, and has led to severe sanctions against Russia, a major exporter of fertilizer.

Kariuki used to spend 20,000 Kenyan shillings, or about $175, to fertilize her entire farm. Now, she would need to spend five times as much. Continuing to work the land, she said, would yield nothing but losses.

“I cannot continue with the farming business. I am quitting farming to try something else,” she said.

Higher fertilizer prices are making the world’s food supply more expensive and less abundant, as farmers skimp on nutrients for their crops and get lower yields. While the ripples will be felt by grocery shoppers in wealthy countries, the squeeze on food supplies will land hardest on families in poorer countries. It could hardly come at a worse time: The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said last week that its world food-price index in March reached the highest level since it started in 1990.

The fertilizer crunch threatens to further limit worldwide food supplies, already constrained by the disruption of crucial grain shipments from Ukraine and Russia. The loss of those affordable supplies of wheat, barley and other grains raises the prospect of food shortages and political instability in Middle Eastern, African and some Asian countries where millions rely on subsidized bread and cheap noodles.


“Food prices will skyrocket because farmers will have to make profit, so what happens to consumers?” said Uche Anyanwu, an agricultural expert at the University of Nigeria.

The aid group Action Aid warns that families in the Horn of Africa are already being driven “to the brink of survival.”

The U.N. says Russia is the world’s No. 1 exporter of nitrogen fertilizer and No. 2 in phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. Its ally Belarus, also contending with Western sanctions, is another major fertilizer producer.

Many developing countries — including Mongolia, Honduras, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Mexico and Guatemala — rely on Russia for at least a fifth of their imports.

The conflict also has driven up the already-exorbitant price of natural gas, used to make nitrogen fertilizer. The result: European energy prices so high that some fertilizer companies “have closed their businesses and stopped operating their plants,” said David Laborde, a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

For corn and cabbage farmer Jackson Koeth, 55, of Eldoret in western Kenya, the conflict in Ukraine was distant and puzzling until he had to decide whether to go ahead with the planting season. Fertilizer prices had doubled from last year.

Koeth said he decided to keep planting but only on half the acreage of years past. Yet he doubts he can make a profit with fertilizer so costly.

Greek farmer Dimitris Filis, who grows olives, oranges and lemons, said “you have to search to find” ammonia nitrate and that the cost of fertilizing a 10-hectare (25-acre) olive grove has doubled to 560 euros ($310). While selling his wares at an Athens farm market, he said most farmers plan to skip fertilizing their olive and orange groves this year.

“Many people will not use fertilizers at all, and this as a result, lowers the quality of the production and the production itself, and slowly, slowly at one point, they won’t be able to farm their land because there will be no income,” Filis said.

In China, the price of potash — potassium-rich salt used as fertilizer — is up 86% from a year earlier. Nitrogen fertilizer prices have climbed 39% and phosphorus fertilizer is up 10%.

In the eastern Chinese city of Tai’an, the manager of a 35-family cooperative that raises wheat and corn said fertilizer prices have jumped 40% since the start of the year.

“We can hardly make any money,” said the manager, who would give only his surname, Zhao.

Terry Farms, which grows produce on 2,100 acres largely in Ventura, California, has seen prices of some fertilizer formulations double; others are up 20%. Shifting fertilizers is risky, vice president William Terry said, because cheaper versions might not give “the crop what it needs as a food source.″

As the growing season approaches in Maine, potato farmers are grappling with a 70% to 100% increase in fertilizer prices from last year, depending on the blend.

“I think it’s going to be a pretty expensive crop, no matter what you’re putting in the ground, from fertilizer to fuel, labor, electrical and everything else,” said Donald Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board.

In Prudentopolis, a town in Brazil’s Parana state, farmer Edimilson Rickli showed off a warehouse that would normally be packed with fertilizer bags but has only enough to last a few more weeks. He’s worried that, with the war in Ukraine showing no sign of letting up, he’ll have to go without fertilizer when he plants wheat, barley and oats next month.

“The question is: Where Brazil is going to buy more fertilizer from?” he said. “We have to find other markets.″

Other countries are hoping to help fill the gaps. Nigeria, for example, opened Africa’s largest fertilizer factory last month, and the $2.5 billion plant has already shipped fertilizer to the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico.

India, meanwhile, is seeking more fertilizer imports from Israel, Oman, Canada and Saudi Arabia to make up for lost shipments from Russia and Belarus.

“If the supply shortage gets worse, we will produce less,” said Kishor Rungta of the nonprofit Fertiliser Association of India. “That’s why we need to look for options to get more fertilizers in the country.”

Agricultural firms are providing support for farmers, especially in Africa where poverty often limits access to vital farm inputs. In Kenya, Apollo Agriculture is helping farmers get fertilizer and access to finance.

“Some farmers are skipping the planting season and others are going into some other ventures such as buying goats to cope,” said Benjamin Njenga, co-founder of the firm. “So these support services go a long way for them.”

Governments are helping, too. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last month that it was issuing $250 million in grants to support U.S. fertilizer production. The Swiss government has released part of its nitrogen fertilizer reserves.

Still, there’s no easy answer to the double whammy of higher fertilizer prices and limited supplies. The next 12 to 18 months, food researcher LaBorde said, “will be difficult.″

The market already was “super, super tight” before the war, said Kathy Mathers of the Fertilizer Institute trade group.

“Unfortunately, in many cases, growers are just happy to get fertilizer at all,” she said.

___

Asadu reported from Lagos, Nigeria, and Wiseman from Washington. Contributing to this story were: Tatiana Pollastri in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Debora Alvares in Brasilia, Brazil; Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi; Lefteris Pitarakis in Athens; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Joe McDonald and Yu Bing in Beijing; Lisa Rathke in Marshfield, Vermont; Dave Kolpack in Fargo, North Dakota; Kathia Martínez in Panama City; Christoph Noelting in Frankfurt; Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City; Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria; Tarik El-Barakah in Rabat, Morocco; Tassanee Vejpongsa and Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok; Ilan Ben Zion in Jerusalem; Edie Lederer at the United Nations; and Aya Batrawy in Dubai.

The Russian War In Ukraine And Its Impact On Africa – Analysis

 March 18, 2022  

By Dr. Mohamed Chtatou

When Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, started sending thousands of soldiers and tanks to the border of Ukraine, many thought he just wanted to make a show of force. The two countries are very similar and were once very close. But this was no joke, in the least, Putin meant business. His hidden agenda is to absorb peaceful Ukraine into the Russian Federation on the ground that it is an act of self-defense in reaction to the West’s territorial encroachment that aims at surrounding Russia to weaken it.

Russian violation of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of a peaceful Ukraine

However, on February 24, 2022, the Russian army started to enter and bomb Ukraine. In truth, we have to go back in time a bit: things have been going badly between the two countries for at least eight years. In 2014, people in Kyiv, the capital, began to demand more freedom and closer ties with the European Union and the West. The Ukrainian president at the time, who was a friend of Russia, was even forced to flee.

Shortly thereafter, in response, Russia had already invaded a part of Ukraine, Crimea, which it considered its own. In another part of the east of the country, the Donbas, a first war broke out between those who wanted to move closer to Russia and those who feared that Ukraine would be cut into pieces. For eight years, several countries (including Switzerland) tried to bring peace between the Ukrainian brothers. But they did not succeed.

Vladimir Putin now explains that he wants to defend the Ukrainians who feel more Russian. According to him, they were “threatened” and they needed his help. However, he has also given a whole series of other justifications that blur his real objectives. For example, it seems that the Russian president does not really recognize Ukraine’s right to be an independent country from Russia. He also believes that if Ukraine moves closer to Western Europe, and especially if it becomes part of the military alliance that includes these countries as well as the United States and Canada (NATO), Russia will find itself surrounded by enemies.

In the past, Russia was a vast empire that extended far beyond its current borders. From his statements, Vladimir Putin seems to consider that he must forever maintain special ties with the other countries that made up this empire. But the vast majority of Ukrainians do not share this opinion at all, and they are ready today to defend their country.

The intensity and scale of the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army is causing a humanitarian catastrophe of a severity not seen in Europe since the Second World War. This attack is led by one of the most powerful armies in the world against a country of 44 million inhabitants before the invasion. As proof of the violence of the fighting, over 3 million Ukrainians have already fled to neighboring countries, mainly to Poland.

Refugees are crossing to neighboring countries to the west, such as Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Moldova, Belarus, and even Russia.

The UN says that as of March 14, 2022:

• Poland had taken in 1,808,436 refugees
• Hungary 263,888
• Slovakia 213,000
• Moldova 337,215
• Romania 453,432
• Russia 142,994
• Belarus 1,475

The speed of this exodus is unprecedented. There are already more Ukrainian refugees in European countries than the number of Syrians who fled the war in their country in 2015. At the time, there was talk of a refugee “crisis.” Europe, with the exception of Germany, had closed its borders. Today, the attitude towards the Ukrainians is quite different. But how long will the countries bordering Ukraine be able to cope with this influx?

Ukrainians trapped in bombed-out cities

The situation is even more dramatic inside Ukraine. After failing to quickly take the capital, Kyiv, to replace the Ukrainian government, the Russian army has stepped up its bombing in an attempt to break the Ukrainians’ resistance. The strikes on densely populated cities are causing many casualties among the inhabitants.

According to the UN, hundreds of civilians have been killed since the beginning of the invasion on February 24,2022. But these are only the deaths that could be confirmed. The human toll is likely to be much higher. And the death and injury toll will continue to rise as long as the war continues.

As of Sunday, March 13, 2022, at least 636 civilians have died in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began, the UN Human Rights office (OHCHR) said Monday in a statement.

According to the agency, at least 1,125 civilians have been injured so far: 

“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,”

the agency said.

“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, especially in Government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration,”

it added.

Besides, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are trapped in bombed-out cities. Some of them are surrounded by the Russian army. In the besieged cities, the population is finding it increasingly difficult to find drinking water or food. Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia continue, despite the fighting, to evacuate the population of several cities. But, for this, ceasefires are needed so that the inhabitants can be evacuated.

This is the first time that war has occurred in a country with so many nuclear reactors. Moreover, the worst accident in the history of civil nuclear power occurred in Ukraine in 1986, when a reactor exploded in Chernobyl and caused the death of many people. Today, nearly 2600 km² remain off-limits around the site because of radioactivity. However, this area has been invaded by the Russian army, as well as the nuclear power plant of Zaporijjia (six reactors), in the south of Ukraine.

Africa cannot remain indifferent to the Russian aggression

As the war in Ukraine continues, the African Union has clarified its position by condemning the Russian invasion. In such political crises, Africa has often refrained from revealing its position, a move often interpreted as the reason for its inaudible position on the international scene.

But this time, the continent could hardly remain indifferent to the Russian invasion, especially since Moscow also has close relations with several African countries.

The current chairman of the African Union (AU), Macky Sall, and the chairman of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, expressed their extreme concern about the very serious and dangerous situation created in Ukraine.

In their statement, they called on the Russian Federation and any other regional or international actor to imperatively respect international law, territorial integrity, and national sovereignty of Ukraine.

The current Chairman of the African Union and the Chairman of the African Union Commission urged both parties to the immediate establishment of a ceasefire and the opening without delay of political negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations, in order to save the world from the consequences of a global conflict, for peace and stability in international relations for the benefit of all peoples of the world.

On another level, African countries are concerned about the fate of their nationals who try to leave the country. They also remember the aid that used to come from Russia and Ukraine.

The current Chairman of the African Union and President of the Republic of Senegal, H.E. Macky Sall, and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, are following closely the developments in Ukraine and are particularly concerned about reports that African citizens on the Ukrainian side of the border are being denied the right to cross the border to safety.

Both Presidents reiterate that all persons have the right to cross international borders during conflict and, as such, should have the same rights to cross the border to safety from the conflict in Ukraine, regardless of their nationality or racial identity.

Reports that Africans are subject to unacceptable differential treatment are offensive and racist and violate international law. In this regard, the Presidents urge all countries to respect international law and to show equal empathy and support to all people fleeing war, regardless of their racial identity.

The Chairpersons commend the extraordinary mobilization of the AU Member States and their Embassies in neighboring countries to receive and guide African citizens and their families who are trying to cross the border of Ukraine to safety.

African states’ reaction to the war in Ukraine

Africa represents more than 25% of the seats in the UN General Assembly. In a vote on a resolution condemning Russian military aggression, only Eritrea voted against the resolution, while 28 African countries condemned the Russian action. But 17 African countries abstained and 8 other countries did not take part in the vote. How to explain the different positions within the African continent?

We should rather speak of “the” Africas, insofar as Africa is not a monolithic block and the contingency of international relations means that many reactions are due to national issues. Kenya’s reaction at the UN Security Council is enlightening in this respect: the Kenyan representative calmly recalled that the African continent had been colonized by the great European powers and that the populations had been separated by the borders drawn, but that this did not mean that there were incessant wars because the African states had learned to live with this division. This is a good lesson for Russia. It should be noted that the representative recalled from the outset the sacrosanct principle of the intangibility of borders, a principle affirmed by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963.

This explains the cautious reactions: the African Union does not condemn, but calls for respect of international law and the sovereignty of Ukraine. This does not mean that African states support Russia: on the contrary, none, not even Mali or the Democratic Republic of Congo where Russia is present with the Wagner company, have given their support to the invasion. What might appear to be diplomatic prudence is not so insignificant when a nuclear power flouts international law.

However, this prudence can be explained by two main factors:

• The risks of separatism faced by certain African states, and;
• Their dependence on Russia, particularly in terms of grain. Tunisia and Egypt import wheat, notably from Russia and Ukraine.

We can see that the current situation is also summed up by the power games between the West and Russia. There is no distinction made between NATO and the West. It is interesting to follow the distinction that could be made between the cautious diplomatic positioning of the diplomats and the more assertive and clearly pro-Russian public opinions. They have nothing to do with a form of the third way. On the contrary, they share with Russia a rejection of Western values and denounce a form of Western hypocrisy, which condemns the invasion of Ukraine but has not hesitated to intervene in Syria, Libya, or Afghanistan. The double standard is denounced. From the Afro Barometers, we see that the share of positive popular perceptions of Russia and China has increased significantly over the past five years. This reflects Russia’s economic, political and military commitment, but also the role of its propaganda media.

There is also some African ambiguity about Russia, with the public seeing Putin as a strongman who would therefore have the right to decide on a country’s future security alliances while being very concerned about their sovereignty. It seems to him that there is a great deal of Russian political mythology, disseminated and maintained by Putin, that is shared by African populations: moral equivalence between Russian and NATO interventions, strong anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, the politics of humiliation, the feeling that history is written by the victors. All this will be interesting to follow. 

The international order, a few years ago, was still unipolar. We are now moving towards a bipolarization. It is an unstable, interdependent system. However, it is not in the interest of any state to declare itself at odds with international law, especially small states, for whom international institutions are power relays.

Grains at the center of geopolitics

Wheat and other grains are once again at the center of geopolitics after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With both countries playing a major role in the global agricultural market, African leaders need to pay attention.

Agricultural trade between the continent’s countries and Russia and Ukraine is significant. African countries imported $4 billion worth of agricultural products from Russia in 2020. About 90% of these products were wheat, and 6% were sunflower oil. The main importing countries were Egypt, which accounted for almost half of the imports, followed by Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Algeria, Kenya, and South Africa.

Similarly, Ukraine exported $2.9 billion worth of agricultural products to the African continent in 2020. About 48% of these products were wheat, 31% corn, and the rest was sunflower oil, barley, and soybeans.

Russia and Ukraine are major players in the global commodity market. Russia supplies about 10% of the world’s wheat, while Ukraine produces 4%. Collectively, this represents almost the entire wheat production of the European Union. This grain is intended for domestic consumption and export markets. Together, these two countries account for a quarter of global wheat exports; in 2020, they amounted to 18% for Russia and 8% for Ukraine.

These two countries are also key players in the corn sector, with a combined production of 4%. However, when it comes to exports, Ukraine and Russia’s contribution is much larger, with 14% of global corn exports in 2020. They are also among the leading producers and exporters of sunflower oil. In 2020, Ukraine’s sunflower oil exports accounted for 40% of global exports, compared to 18% for Russia.

Russia’s military action has caused panic among some analysts, who fear that the intensification of the conflict could disrupt trade, with serious implications for global food stability.

I share these concerns, particularly with regard to the consequences of a spike in global grain and oilseed prices. These are among the driving forces behind the rise in global food prices since 2020. This is mainly due to droughts in South America and Indonesia, which have led to crop failures, and increased demand in China and India.

The disruption of trade, due to the invasion, in this important Black Sea grain-producing region would contribute to higher international agricultural commodity prices, with potential negative impacts on global food prices. An increase in commodity prices was visible only days after the conflict began.

This is a concern for the African continent, which is a net importer of wheat and sunflower oil. In addition, there are concerns about drought in some parts of the continent. The disruption of shipments of essential commodities would only add to the general concern about food price inflation in a region that imports wheat.

War in Ukraine: what consequences for the African economy? 

The war in Ukraine has, undoubtedly, terrible consequences on the African economy: an increase in the price of gas, oil, agricultural raw materials. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia risks destabilizing the African economy still in remission of the COVID 19 pandemic.

In an interconnected world, any conflict can have repercussions beyond the battlefield. Africa will not be spared the economic and political consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, observes the continent’s press.

The lasting relationship that Russia has built with Africa will be put to the test by the current crisis in Ukraine, analysts tell the Pan-African website Africanews.

Thus, on the Pan-African level, through the voice of its current chairman Macky Sall, the African Union (AU) was quick to express extreme concern about the very serious and dangerous situation created in Ukraine, while calling on Russia to imperative respect for international law, territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Ukraine.

Officially, South Africa is on the side of peace. In a letter to the nation published Monday, March 7, 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa called for a resolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine through dialogue. This position is in keeping with the restraint that characterizes South African diplomatic practices, even if the Russian influence within the ruling African National Congress (ANC) raises questions.

On the first day of the Russian invasion, February 24, 2022, South Africa surprised everyone by calling on Russia, through its Department of International Relations (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), to immediately withdraw its forces from Ukraine. The stance came as a surprise, since South Africa, which is also a member of the BRICS group (along with Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and is close to Moscow, is usually more measured in its diplomacy. It was quickly followed by unease within the executive.

Another reaction came from Morocco, which indicated through its Foreign Ministry that it was following with concern the evolution of the situation between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, reports the Moroccan website Le 360.

As for Algeria, a historical ally of Russia, it simply called on its citizens in Ukraine to respect the security instructions, reports Dzair Daily.

In the African press, the most glaring concern is about grain imports from Ukraine and Russia and the fear of disruptions in supply and prices, says Africanews. The Continent has the same analysis, recalling the importance of Russian wheat.

The Tunisian Central Bank decided to maintain its key rate at 6.25%, during a meeting of its board of directors held on Monday, March 14, 2022. The announcement comes in a context marked by global inflation which has affected commodity prices. Internationally, the Tunisian Central Bank is following with great attention the fallout from the Russian-Ukrainian war on global business, on supply chains, and on the international prices of raw materials and basic foodstuffs, which are likely to have a strong impact on inflation, the institution said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Monday, March 14 2022 that the repercussions of Russia’s war in Ukraine could result in a hurricane of famine in many countries. Highly dependent on imports of wheat and other essential foodstuffs, most countries around the Mediterranean and the rest of the continent are preparing to suffer a major shock.

The outlook for African countries is bleak in the wake of the war in Ukraine. The cessation of exports of cereals, including wheat, and other agricultural inputs, will hit most of them hard, as they are already facing a structural food crisis (climatic disturbances, conflicts) or have been considerably weakened by price increases and stock market speculation on essential products.

Moscow and Kyiv account for 34% of trade in wheat, a commodity that has increased by 70% since the beginning of the year. The countries around the Mediterranean are suffering greatly. For Egypt, this represents 80% of imports. It is the largest importer of wheat in the world (12 million tons). The country has three or four months of stock, estimates Jean-François Loiseau, president of the French cereal interprofession Intercéréales. The price of bread has jumped by 50% since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cairo is considering an increase in the price of the subsidized wafer intended for low-income earners. A risk not taken since the bread riots of 1977.

This is a source of concern for other countries in the region, such as those in the Sahel and West Africa, historically net importers of food. Algerians, for example, remember the riots of 2011 following a sudden surge in oil and sugar prices that spilled over into other consumer goods. In some areas of Algiers, stores were stormed by groups of young people. Demonstrations broke out 250 km away in the city of Béjaïa, in Kabylia, and as far away as Constantine, the capital of the east of the country. However, Algiers is hoping to cushion this shock with additional earnings from gas exports, just like Morocco for phosphates, whose price is rising.

On the other hand, the food insecurity from which the poor populations in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Sudan, torn by internal conflicts, are already suffering, is going to increase. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), world food prices reached a record high in February, up 3.9% from January.

Europe and Africa will be very deeply destabilized in terms of food in the next 12 to 18 months, warned Emmanuel Macron on Friday, March 11, 2022, at the end of a European summit in Versailles (Informal meeting of heads of state or government, Versailles, 10-11 March 2022.) Beyond this observation, African countries need a real safeguard plan to avoid the explosion of famine feared by the World Food Program (WFP).

Dr. Mohamed Chtatou

Dr. Mohamed Chtatou is a Professor of education science at the university in Rabat. He is currently a political analyst with Moroccan, Gulf, French, Italian and British media on politics and culture in the Middle East, Islam and Islamism as well as terrorism. He is, also, a specialist on political Islam in the MENA region with interest in the roots of terrorism and religious extremism.