In 2022, the headlines were filled with panic about global food shortages due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Wheat prices reached record highs due to Russia blocking Ukrainian grain exports to the Black Sea. Politicians and agri-food lobbyists have used the situation to justify a sustained attack on EU plans to reduce pesticide use, arguing that maintaining levels of chemicals is necessary to ensure food safety.

Now, a year later, a completely different story has emerged. Farmers in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria are outraged by the surplus of Ukrainian grain dumped on their doorstep. Last week, Polish Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk was forced to resign over the issue, and Polish farmers were forced to protest President Zelenskyi’s first official visit to Warsaw since the war.

These farmers have reason to feel offended. Much of Ukraine’s grain harvest has been diverted by rail, and all EU import tariffs and quotas have been raised to ensure that grain is not blocked and wasted. Unprecedented flows of 1.17 billion euros worth of Ukrainian wheat have flowed into neighboring EU countries, driving down local prices and leaving many farmers’ produce languishing in warehouses.

Products had to transit through these countries to reach international markets. But a significant part remained in the country, occupying places in silos and entering the local market, due to the lack of transport opportunities and problems with the railway infrastructure. It was also helped by falling demand from North African countries, which have had to cut food imports as their economies weaken amid rising interest rates.

So, are we facing too little or too much food production?

The answer is none of them. The surplus of grain on the markets of Poland, Romania and Bulgaria shows that the current food price crisis is not and has never been a food shortage. It is about distribution and dysfunctional markets.

Polish farmers are currently suffering from a sharp drop in income. But dysfunctions in food markets are a global phenomenon. For decades, farmers in many countries of the Global South have been similarly undermined by the dumping of cheap food into their markets from Western countries that subsidize food production and exports.

Many of these countries have become dependent on food imports, making them particularly vulnerable to disruptions in the world market. These countries now face rising food import bills and rising debt payments, threatening new waves of famine even as Europe has a grain surplus.

Such consequences are the product of a bankrupt industrial food system that prioritizes the re-production of new food staples for global supply chains and encourages monopolization by a handful of agribusinesses, such as grain giants, which posted record profits last year as food markets took a nosedive. wild. It is a system that is systematically unable to get food to where it is needed to prevent the rise of hunger or to provide sustainable livelihoods for farmers.

Furthermore, food systems built on these levels of concentration are not only highly vulnerable to shocks such as war, climate change, and financial instability, they are also prone to boom-and-bust cycles that typically lead to bottlenecks, shortages, and instability that harms farmers and consumers. around the world.

In the near future, the affected farmers in the eastern regions deserve compensation. Funding for them could come from a tax on the surplus profits of the four grain giants, which have enjoyed record profits as a result of soaring food prices.

More efforts must be made to ensure that grain can be exported from Ukraine and Romania, Poland and Bulgaria – and to where it is needed, namely to regions with a high level of food security. It cannot be dumped in local markets, nor fed to pigs and cows.

But it is also time for policymakers to recognize that the industrial food system cannot provide sustainable food security or financial stability for farmers. Producing more and more and using natural resources to increase profits in the name of “food security” is a recipe for further chaos. And they need to end the race to the bottom and stop pitting farmers against each other.

Yes, we will always need fair trade. But our food system needs to be completely transformed and diversified to be less prone to harmful cycles of boom and bust, speculative bubbles and dumping, and to be more resilient to shocks. Farmers should be able to produce a much greater variety of food for more local and regional markets. And they must receive a fair and stable price from consumers.

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Olivier De Schutter is co-chair of the International Expert Group on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, and professor at the University of Louvain.

Jennifer Clapp is a Food Security Specialist at the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, Vice-Chair of the UN High-Level Panel on Food Security and Nutrition, and Professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Both will be speaking at the Extinction Or Regeneration conference, London, May 11-12, 2023.