Stéphane Madaule, an expert on the world grain market, warns about a reality that is rarely talked about: the transformation of Russia into a grain exporting power over the last forty years. This factor helps to explain the policy of Vladimir Putin, not only with regard to Ukraine, but in Africa. Madaule, Professor of Economics at the School of Advanced International and Political Studies (HEIP) in Paris, emphasized in an interview with La Vanguardia that “food is a geopolitical weapon for Putin” and “reinforces his ambition to 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 grains destined for the whole world, the international community soon realized that the price of basic agricultural raw materials was rising sharply and that it was dangerous, if not impossible, the provision of the most vulnerable countries in terms of food dependency. The Russo-Ukrainian conflict, therefore, not only had serious implications in the energy field, especially for Europe, which is highly dependent on Russian gas, but for the entire world in the agricultural and food fields. Russian and Ukrainian exports today represent, at 400 million tons each year, a quarter of the world grain market. No other major exporter was able to replace the Russian and Ukrainian supply, which traditionally feeds very solvent countries, such as China, and also other less solvent ones, such as those in North Africa, the sub-Saharan part and Egypt .
In a recent article, you emphasized the fact that Russia has gone from being the world’s first importer of cereals, forty years ago, during the time of the Soviet Union, to being one of the five largest exporters. Why has it been so?
Indeed, in the eighties of the last century, Russia was a structural importer of cereals that came 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 strived to reduce dependence on the world market by increasing its own production. It helped that there was less need for grain for animal consumption, which automatically freed up surpluses for export. That policy worked so well that the country became not only self-sufficient, but a net exporter.
Have the farms been managed better, with more productivity?
Yes, the results are better. Russia has modernized the farms and there have been large investments, Russian and foreign, also in the logistics chain aimed at export. The statistics of the International Cereals Council testify 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 the sowing of cereals in areas affected by warming, which will increase production and exports.
Does climate change still have a lot of potential to increase production in Russia, more so 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, as we do not know the level of temperature increase. However, we do know that warming is changing the geography of crops and that very cold regions where the climate is being tempered offer new opportunities. Canada and Russia are some of the countries that can benefit from it. But, be warned, those regions that were under the ice or that were suffering from extreme cold can become vectors for the transmission of new viruses with unpredictable consequences for man and nature.
Anyway, I imagine they won’t be returning to the days when there were always Russian cargo ships anchored in the river port of Rouen on the Seine to stock up on grain.
No, this is 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 provides 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?
exactly Russia is not only able to support the security of the territory in some countries in this part of the world, and it is not only able to supply energy at a good price. It can also feed, in part, African cities with exponential population growth. In the eighties 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, in the geostrategic field, the change is radical. Russia sees its influence being strengthened 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 their power ambition. A win over Ukraine would only reinforce that.
Will the massive bombing, the millions of projectiles dropped, the minefields be a serious long-term problem for Ukrainian agriculture?
It will indeed be very long, difficult and expensive to unpack all this arsenal.
Are Ukrainian provinces annexed by Russia particularly fertile? Are they part of the so-called black lands?
Yes, it is certainly good land, but no more so than the cultivated land on the outskirts of Odessa or around Kyiv.
Would an eventual 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 family agricultural model of the EU, which would enter into competition with farms of several thousand hectares. It would cause a vertiginous increase in EU cereal production, in direct competition with eastern countries, including Poland, which is already complaining. Ukraine’s tariff-free exports to the EU since the conflict began are one of the causes of the agricultural unrest that we suffer in many European countries.
