Most acute food crises provoked by US and its allies: Russian ambassador to Bangladesh says in open letter

In the past few days we have been hearing from the Western capitals more statements about global food security and the alleged key role of the Black Sea Initiative in this issue. In doing so they have been hurling accusations at Russia for suspending the Initiative purposely demonising the Russian Federation.

The recent article "Russia Must Stop Using Food as a Weapon" by Josep Borrel, High Representative of EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, which was published by several Bangladeshi newspapers, is not the exception.

Russia must stop using food as a weapon

It is positive that our Western counterparts have started to think about global food security but their interest is merely opportunistic, which is regrettable. It is obvious to us that the most acute food crises have been provoked, either directly or indirectly, by acts of the United States and its allies or have followed from their longstanding policies. For example, Afghanistan that J. Borrel wrote about, today has been struggling to get out from the vortex of hunger and poverty for the past 20 years. All this because of the experiments of the US-led coalition that attempted to democratize this country, which strongly upholds a traditional lifestyle. Syria, which used to be the granary that provided bread to many neighbors, faces food and other crises while the US is still occupying large parts of that state, stealing oil, grain and other natural resources from it.

Let us sort out the underlying causes of threats to food security, of which US and EU representatives modestly keep silent. First, by UN estimates, technically there is no acute shortage of food in the world, we produce enough, but the problem is in uneven distribution. Second - pricing environment: major agricultural manufacturers benefit from maintaining the prices for their products at a high level. Four agricultural giants, three of which are American (Archer Daniels Midland, 2 Bunge, and Cargill) and one Dutch (Louis Dreyfus) account for 75% to 90% of global agricultural turnover. In fiscal year 2022, Cargill alone boosted its sales volume by 23% (to $165 billion) with a record-high net profit of $5 billion.

Let us ask ourselves who is using food as a weapon and why, against super profits of Western agricultural operators, the threat of hunger affects developing nations with growing populations the most. The answer is: Western colonizers purposefully "moulded" them in a specific way so they could effect the largest possible profits for the colonial power, making developing states capable of feeding their own population was not a goal.

The Western states true to their nature twisting everything in their favor, managed to turn the Black Sea Initiative from a humanitarian into a commercial project. During the year it was implemented, about 33 million tonnes of grain, including a mere 8.8 million tonnes of wheat, were exported from the ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny - primarily fodder grain, was mostly sent to well- fed Europe. Only 3% of the exported grain went to the countries in need. That said, global grain exports were 422.4 million tonnes overall, including 205.6 million tonnes of wheat. Ukraine's share is obviously small, but it is still presented as "saving the world from hunger."

What is also important, the Westerns clearly manifested their arrogant unwillingness to implement the second part of the "grain deal" – the Russia-UN Memorandum of Understanding on the supply of Russian food and fertilizers to world markets. And this is despite the fact that Russia's share in the world wheat market is 20%, while Ukraine's share is less than 5%. This means that Russia makes a significant contribution to global food security and is a solid, responsible international supplier of agricultural products. Not to mention the exceptional role of Russian fertilizers for global food security.

Indicatively, the West believes that a de facto ban on the export of Russian and Belarusian mineral fertilisers, which led to their physical shortage, does not have any impact on the prices. And apparently, they don't care about the up to 45 million people that could have been fed with food produced with Russian ammonia fertilisers if the Ukrainians had first not stopped and then later detonated altogether the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline.

Nor do the Western capitals comment on their refusal to unblock Russian fertilisers for free transfer to the poorest countries. Instead, they try to play down Russian humanitarian wheat supplies to the needy African countries.

In these conditions, our position remains the same, and we have expressed it many times: first, they need to resolve the system-related hurdles (reconnecting Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT; resuming parts supplies, reestablishing transport logistics and insurance coverage; and restoring Russian companies' access to their foreign assets). Unfortunately, it is pointless to talk about the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline. Only after all this is done it will be possible to consider the resumption of the Black Sea Initiative with the announced humanitarian goals.

Mr. Josep Borrel in the article spouted with figures and numbers regarding the humanitarian assistance that EU renders to developing countries. Whether this is very much or too little but one cannot fail to notice that the scale of US and its allies' assistance to the Global South cannot compare to what has been allocated in the past almost two years to buy arms for a "proxy war" against Russia to be fought until the last Ukrainian. According to the most conservative estimates, this stands at €80 billion, while the total amount of funds allocated to Ukraine is €165 billion. For comparison – the total that UN OCHA requested from donors for all humanitarian operations in 2023 was $55.2 billion, and so far only 24.8% of this amount has been collected. Can you imagine what good could be done in the world if the US and its allies spent money on assistance for development as readily as they pay for wars across the globe?

Despite all the good slogans, donor assistance of Western states does not come for free. It always comes along with some political preconditions. Mr. J.Borrell, as well as the leaders of Great Britain, France, and the United States, who are most concerned about global food security and famine, recently said that they would suspend assistance for Niger. Did people there stop starving overnight after the coup?

No one should succumb to this deception. The habits and methods of former colonizers have not changed. They simply come in a new wrapping, and that's that.

In this context we would like to say that enough is enough. Enough of the hypocrisy, lies and distortion of facts, which are stubborn things, as everyone knows.

Russia has never viewed Africa, Asia or Latin America as a space to draw profit from. Russia (and previously the Soviet Union) has been paying priority attention to famine and conflict-induced global food insecurity. Despite all the obstacles imposed by the United States and its allies, we have helped, are helping, and will continue to help those in need around the world. We have and will continue to build factories, schools, hospitals, and universities so that people in the developing countries can use their natural resources to manufacture finished goods with added value instead of exporting raw materials, so that young people would rather stay at home than leave en masse.

Alexander Mantytskiyn is the Ambassador of Russia to Bangladesh