"With duties, export bans, and other restrictions, New Delhi is harming the same developing nations it claims to want to lead," writes Mihir Sharma, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.
Sharma adds, "Three calamities have caused grain supplies to dry up: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its decision to abandon the Black Sea grain initiative; the El Niño weather phenomenon, which has traditionally caused poor harvests across the world; and Indian domestic politics."
Although, every rice eater in the wider world has felt the pinch, the International Food Policy Research Institute has pointed out, it is not the West that will suffer as a result of, for example, the ban on the export of non-basmati rice. Of the 15 countries that imported more than 100,000 metric tons of such rice from India in 2022, nine are in sub-Saharan Africa: Kenya, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Guinea, Madagascar, Benin, Angola, Mozambique, and Togo. Food prices are driving up inflation across the region: In Nigeria, inflation now tops 25%, and in Ghana it’s been over 40% for months.
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