The looming global food crisis that could result from skyrocketing food prices was enabled by a series of policy mistakes by Washington and Brussels in recent years, Maksim Oreshkin told RT.
The conflict in Ukraine alone could not have caused the crisis on such a massive scale, Oreshkin, the economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Thursday.
The international food price index calculated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization shows that between April 2020 and April 2022, global food prices rose by more than 60%, or 60 index points. The increase occurred for the most part before February 2022, when Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine.
Between 2020 and 2021, during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the index grew by a whopping 27 points – from 98.1 to 125.7. In the previous four years, between 2016 and 2020, it grew by less than 7 points – from 91.9 to 98.1. In the second year of the pandemic, prices continued to rise, and in February 2022, the index stood at 141.1 points. The period since the start of Russia’s military operation saw the index grow by a further 17 points, amounting to around 12% of the overall rise in food prices over the two-year period.