Foreign Policy published an article that Moscow and Washington battle at the U.N. to assign responsibility for a looming food crisis that threatens millions with starvation. Even before the war, Russia had imposed export taxes on its wheat, and the insecurity brought about by trading in a war zone has driven up shipping and insurance costs. “Exports are moving,” but at a slower pace, Joseph Glauber, a senior research fellow. Glauber said he believes there are workarounds to minimize the impact of sanctions, though some financial measures, including the exclusion of several Russian banks from the SWIFT system, a financial platform for financial exchanges, are likely to hamper trade with relatively small outfits. “If you are shipping to a big-importing country in North Africa, and you’re dealing with the government ministry, they are big enough to make the transactions,” he said. “But if you are a small flour producer in Turkey you may be facing issues in terms of how to pay for that wheat.” Glauber said, “As far as the analytical stuff I have seen from FAO it looks very, very solid.”
