Stéphane Madaule, an expert on the world cereal market, warns about a reality that is little talked about, the transformation of Russia into a grain exporting power in the last forty years. This factor helps explain Vladimir Putin’s policy, not only towards Ukraine but also in Africa. Madaule, professor of Economics at the School of Higher International and Political Studies (HEIP) in Paris, stressed in an interview with La Vanguardia that “food is a geopolitical weapon for Putin” and “reinforces his ambition for power.”
The war in Ukraine includes an agricultural and food dimension. How important is this component?
When the port of Odessa, in 2022, was closed to the export of Ukrainian grain destined for the entire world, the international community quickly realized that the price of basic agricultural raw materials was increasing sharply and that it was dangerous, if not impossible, the supply of the most vulnerable countries in terms of food dependency. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, therefore, not only had serious implications in the energy field, especially for Europe, highly dependent on Russian gas, but for the entire world in the agricultural and food fields. Russian and Ukrainian exports today represent, with 400 million tons per year, a quarter of the world cereal market. No other major exporter was capable of replacing this Russian and Ukrainian supply, which traditionally feeds very solvent countries, such as China, and also less solvent ones, such as those in North Africa, the sub-Saharan part and Egypt.
In a recent article, you emphasized that Russia has gone from being the world’s leading importer of cereals, forty years ago, during the times of the Soviet Union, to being one of the five largest exporters. Why was that?
Indeed, in the 80s of the last century, Russia was a structural importer of cereals from France, the United States, Canada, Australia and Argentina. At that time, those five exporting countries dominated the market. Since Putin came to power in 2000, Russia has worked to reduce dependence on the world market by increasing its own production. He was helped by the reduced need for grain for animal consumption, which automatically freed up surpluses for export. That policy worked so well that the country not only became self-sufficient but a net exporter.
Have the farms been managed better, with greater productivity?
That’s right, the results are better. Russia has modernized its farms and there have been large investments, Russian and foreign, also in the logistics chain aimed at export. The statistics of the International Grains Council attest to this: 65 million tons in 2000, 135 million tons in 2017. In the future, thanks to climate change, it is not excluded that there will be new opportunities for sowing cereals in affected areas. due to warming, which will increase production and exports.
Does climate change still have much potential for production to grow in Russia, more than in countries like Canada, for example?
It is difficult to estimate the effects that climate change will have on cereal production in Russia and Canada, since we do not know the level of increase in temperatures. However, we do know that warming changes the geography of crops and that very cold regions where the climate tempers offer new opportunities. Canada and Russia are some of the countries that can benefit. But be careful, those regions that were under the ice or that suffered extreme cold can become vectors for the transmission of new viruses whose consequences for man and nature are unpredictable.
In any case, I imagine that those times when there were always Russian cargo ships anchored in the river port of Rouen, on the Seine, to supply grain will never return.
No, that’s over, unless Russia collapses economically, specifically its agriculture. Russia has become a structural exporter of cereals, it is self-sufficient and capable of exporting millions of tons every year. It even offers food aid to certain African countries.
Is the Russian geopolitical expansionism we see in Africa, such as in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and the Central African Republic, strengthened by this new food weapon?
Exact. Russia not only presents itself with the capacity to support territorial security in some countries in this area of ??the world. And it is not only capable of supplying energy at a good price. It can also feed, in part, African cities with exponential population growth. In the 80s of the last century, it was France that supplied cereals to the countries you mentioned. He sold them or gave them away as food aid. Therefore, at the geostrategic level the change is radical. Russia sees its influence strengthening in African countries and, in general, in southern countries that seek non-Western leadership. Food is a geopolitical weapon for Putin. The food weapon is a key aspect of his power ambitions. A victory over Ukraine would only reinforce it.
Will the massive bombings, the millions of fallen shells, the minefields be a serious long-term problem for Ukrainian agriculture?
It will indeed be very long, difficult and expensive to get rid of all that arsenal.
Are the Ukrainian provinces annexed by Russia especially fertile? Are they part of the so-called black lands?
Yes, it is certainly good land, but no more than the cultivated land on the outskirts of Odessa or around Kyiv.
Would a possible accession of Ukraine to the European Union have a strong impact on the agricultural sector?
Yes, because it would call into question, in part, the EU’s family farming model, which would enter into competition with farms of several thousand hectares. It would cause a dizzying increase in EU cereal production, in direct competition with eastern countries like Poland, which is already complaining. Ukraine’s tariff-free exports to the EU since the beginning of the conflict are one of the causes of the agricultural unrest that we suffer in many European countries.
