Ukraine war shows that food is foremost

Abhijit Bhattacharyya

Author and Columnist

“This was the second full day without food. We were all suffering from dehydration. Didn’t know how much longer the men and I could go without nourishment as we had already been without food for 60 hours...I glanced at my watch. It’s exactly 9.22 am, Monday 22nd October 1962. I was prisoner of Chinese People’s Liberation Army. At this time, I was without food for 66 hours; exhausted, hungry, unshaven, despondent,” (Himalayan Blunder; page 390; Brigadier John P Dalvi).

That’s what happens to sovereign nation’s fighters without food, owing to the criminal negligence of the state machinery to supply provisions from the benign base to the burning border of the Himalayan highland. China inflicted a one-month-long humiliating military blow, thereby ruthlessly exposing the food crisis in the kitchen of the frontier fighters, which compelled the hungry warriors to experience the prison of the foe. Clearly, wars invariably create a food crisis, both in the frontier and farmhouse.

Fortunately, however, global wars have always been at a distance unlike the one in 1962 which was fought within India’s own territory. Nevertheless, World War II still stands as the most destructive and catastrophic famine for eastern India.

Before the 1962 starving of the Indian soldiers, there took place, 150 years ago in 1812, another savage slaughter of the hungry and starving soldiers of the Napoleonic regiment owing to a food shortage caused by a monumental logistics failure, signalling the fall of the mighty Parisians at the hands of Romanov Czar’s unsung and under-rated humans and their horses which kept the logistics line alive. Hence, the firing fusillade by the emaciated French fighters was of no use, except facing an inevitable rout as their stomach was without food. The 1812 French disaster was a historical inevitability.

Contextually, today’s Russia-Ukraine conflict, too, has created an unprecedented global panic pertaining to food production, consumption and distribution. From Tokyo to Chicago, Delhi to Dhaka, Canada to Argentina, every major grain-producing country is worried despite being far from the war zone. Indeed, what potentially compounds the complications of combat is its unpredictable duration and endurance. Despite the six-month bloodshed, there’s no sign of any peace. Far from it. The increased flow of lethal weapons from the West to the armoury of Ukraine and the resultant Russian retaliation make the peace prospect a mirage.

Nevertheless, a realisation is dawning that it’s got to be a food-world beyond a fighting-world, first and foremost. Thus, Delhi’s neighbour Dhaka, despite being the world’s third biggest rice producer — 3.60 crore tonnes annually — is finalising deals with India and Vietnam to import 3,30,000 tonnes to replenish its reserves and cool the soaring domestic prices owing to the war effects.

India is today the second ranked rice (12 crore tonnes) and third biggest wheat (10.04 crore tonnes) producer and also an exporter thereof. Yet, alarm bells ring as her current rice production is under threat from a weak monsoon in the two major growing areas of Bengal and Uttar Pradesh which account for a quarter of the national output. The Indian government, therefore, has to tread a thin line, balancing between the domestic price rise, profitable export mart and tight supply line as plantings have reportedly declined by eight per cent.

In the USA, too, the government is prodding farmers to plant two crops (double-cropping) instead of one. Being the fifth biggest wheat producer (5.5 crore tonnes) and exporter, the Europe war worried a helpless Washington as wheat remained stuck in the blockaded ports, thereby disrupting the distribution-consumer axis across the globe. In fact, “double cropping” would be the way for the USA to play a bigger role in the world grain market with a larger share of export to hitherto untapped consumers who were used to the Asian and European products. The Ukraine war has, thus, opened profitable ways for the grain to new buyers from surplus wheat producers. Ukraine down has meant the USA up.

For Japan, however, food has always been an area of concern owing to its island geography. The concern aggravates when the war is long-drawn and protracted. Thus Japan, despite being the ninth biggest rice producer (77 lakh tonnes) of the world, remains an importer. The remote Russia-Ukraine conflict “spooked” Japan into boosting its defence spending. But the proximate Taiwan Strait tension is the real security challenge with “shrivelling rice paddies”. What’s ominous is the alleged “abandonment of rice paddies/agricultural land, leaving the country more vulnerable than ever.” Retired Vice-Admiral Toshiyuki Ito is angry: “They don’t do anything for national security...They think only about economic efficiency.”

How pointed and piercing is that? Agriculture relegated in the overall scheme of things by a vulnerable island-nation which hugely depends on import through the sea? Japan’s suffering is bound to be colossal in case of a major blockade or disruption to the sea lanes around the China/Taiwan strait. The Japanese have learnt the importance of self-sufficiency. “Through the Ukraine situation, we’ve realised that what you can do domestically, you should. You have to produce as much as you can at home, including fertilisers and seeds.”

In fact, gone are the days of the Japanese being the sole unchallenged navy of Asia to protect its sea lanes. Today, any direct involvement in a war will only make the food situation dire. Not only for Japan, but all, as most nations aren’t self-sufficient in food production.

Indeed, farmer, fertiliser, food and famine collectively constitute the biggest takeaway from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Not fire-power or bombs, missiles or long-range artillery guns. Thus, the fallout is so alarming that even Canada, the world’s sixth biggest wheat producer (3.46 crore tonnes), is going all out to produce more than expected. The basics are simple: produce more, expand storage to face long-term crisis in the food supply and distribution system. Feed own people first. Then help the needy neighbours because well-fed people cannot remain in peace with a starving neighbour breathing down their neck for the minimum calories for sustenance. Distress spill-over is inevitable.

Coming back to India, there’s no doubt that food self-sufficiency is one marvellous achievement attained by the farmers and supported by successive rulers from the 1960s, notwithstanding several fault-lines resulting in agrarian-distressed suicides and poor debt reduction mechanism.

Nevertheless, just as the Japanese are reacting about agriculture and food being ignored for the sake of non-agriculture “economic efficiency”, India must remember that feeding 1.3 billion heads is her foremost duty and responsibility. Neither a glitzy metro building nor an increased number of stock market multi-billionaires can assume the role of a rescuer in case food and agriculture distress lead to en masse hunger, resulting in famine, born out of a war in a distant land. The signs are ominous.

Eternal vigilance and agility are the need of the critical times because to a man with an empty stomach, food is god, as Gandhiji rightly said.

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