Food insecurity: Oleg Kobiakov, Head of the FAO Russian Office, speaks about the “Grain Deal”, the fight against hunger, and Russian bananas

The interview is prepared by Tatyana Karabut.

Source:  Rossiyskaya Gazeta (available in Russian).

Mr Kobiakov, Head of the FAO Russian Office, told RG about import substitution in industrial agriculture

Tatyana Karabut

No negotiations on renewing the “Grain Deal” in the previous format are being conducted. Obstacles to Russian food supplies have had an effect comparable to direct sanctions. Russia is capable of import substitution of almost everything, including bananas. Oleg Kobiakov, Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Liaison Office with the Russian Federation, spoke about this during an interview with RG.

Over the recent years, multiple sanctions (mainly, increased duties) have been imposed against Russian food and mineral fertilizers. If Russian food were to be excluded from the global market, what would that lead to?

Oleg Kobiakov: To be fair, let us clarify that Russian food has never been under direct sanctions. However, barriers to vessel chartering and insurance, bans on port calls and bunkering, and difficulties with financial transactions have essentially produced an effect comparable to sanctions. Nevertheless, I am sure that the “zero scenario”, the complete blocking of agricultural export, is impossible, since a substantial portion of it is consumed by countries that traditionally count on Russian supplies and will find a way to continue them in any eventuality.

A solution will be found in any case, but not without damage to producers and consumers. For the former, incomes will drop, and for the latter, the food basket will become more expensive.

As for fertilizers, the rise in their price due to import duties primarily hits in the pocket consumers in the countries raising the duties, since it will affect the price of final products. For Russian exporters, whose share in the global fertilizer market cannot be substituted, the production will still remain profitable.

Are there any negotiations currently underway to renew the “Grain Deal”? Is there a need for it now?

Oleg Kobiakov: As far as I am aware, no negotiations on renewing the “Grain Deal” in the previous format, which was initiated by the UN management back in the day, are being conducted.

Russia is currently focused on import substitution of inputs (seeds, plant protection products, agricultural machinery, fry, breeding animals, etc.). What can we substitute, what needs to be substituted, and what will we never be able to and do not need to? And how much time could it take?

Oleg Kobiakov: Taking into account Russia’s natural, resource and technological capabilities, it is capable of import substitution of everything or almost everything. The only question is expediency and the cost. After the collapse of the USSR, the market for planting and seed material and modern high-efficient plant protection products was dominated by large Western companies for decades. And it was easier for agricultural workers to buy goods from such well-known, trusted sellers, which were also way ahead of post-Soviet and young Russian companies in terms of marketing. This is what Russia got hooked on.

When the sanctions appeared, it became obvious that our level of self-sufficiency in many areas was not enough, and for some crops (for example, beets or potatoes) it was even critically low: less than 10%. Therefore, the task to remedy this situation in the near future was set at the state level. Thus, the latest version of the national food security doctrine sets the 75% threshold for self-sufficiency in seeds of staple crops.

Achieving such levels is quite feasible, though not so fast: the production cycle for seeds is much longer than one season. Although, we have to admit that Russia has already made significant progress in substituting imported seeds. The situation is worse, perhaps, with the substitution of highly productive imported breeds in livestock production.

I personally believe that the foreign policy circumstances that currently hinder the normal international division of labour in this field will change faster than 100% import substitution will be achieved.

Will it be possible to actually overcome hunger in the world if countries cannot come to terms with each other? And is it necessary to solve this problem?

Oleg Kobiakov: It is obvious that the zero hunger goal set by the UN will not be achieved by 2030. However, over a longer period of time, this goal is quite feasible. In 1945, when FAO was created, the global population amounted to 2.3 billion. Up to one billion of those, or over 43% of the population, were going hungry after the end of the Second World War. According to the data for 2023, the number of people experiencing hunger was about 735 million, less than 9.2% or every 11th person on the planet. This is great progress.

If not for the COVID pandemic, large-scale natural disasters and armed conflicts of recent years, the number of hungry people would be less. If the current dynamics continue, the number should decrease to 530 million by 2030. Therefore, we are steadily moving towards hunger soon becoming lost in the mists of time, like plague epidemics in the Middle Ages.

In the European region and in North America, the share of the hungry currently does not exceed 2.5%. The situation is worse in Africa and South Asia. Although, for example, in the PRC, outstanding progress has been achieved in this regard: while just 10 years ago, a significant part of the population was at the food insecurity stage, now the issue of hunger is resolved in China.

The well-being of a population can be judged by the share of income spent on buying food, and in most countries of the world the situation is improving. The problem of hunger and poverty is closely linked to inequality. The countries of the “golden billion” out of 8 billion people on the planet have an average per capita income of 20 thousand or more dollars per year, while in the least developed countries it does not even reach 1 thousand dollars.

International organizations of the UN system, including FAO, implement technical assistance projects aimed at overcoming this inequality. FAO specifically does not have the funds necessary for the implementation of large-scale infrastructure projects: the construction of large irrigation structures, power plants, highways, etc., but it provides technical assistance to developing states.

For example, it conducts trainings in best agricultural practices and facilitates the introduction of such scientific achievements as improved plant varieties, fertilizers, and plant protection products, which has a significant impact and increases yields. African countries have set a rather ambitious goal: to achieve complete self-sufficiency in food and eliminate hunger by 2060. And it is attainable because Africa has enormous potential and is capable of feeding the world in the future.

What do you think about the idea of ​​drastically reducing livestock numbers in order to reduce emissions? Would that lead to food price hikes?

Oleg Kobiakov: There are various calculation methods, but using any of them, you will find that the emissions from one cow are several times less than from an average passenger car. In addition, given the current level of consumption of dairy products, we are unlikely to compensate for the lost volumes of milk production if we reduce the herd by half: the physiological limit of milk producing capacity in the dairy industry has almost been reached, and not a single cow, not even a Holstein, will give you 100 litres of milk per day.

Moreover, we need to take into account that livestock production ensures livelihoods for a lot of people, especially in developing countries. There are countries where up to 80% of the population, for example in Somalia, lives off cattle husbandry. And if we drastically reduce the livestock population, we will push people in these countries into poverty and hunger, and dairy products will indeed become much more expensive for all consumers.

This is not even mentioning that the cow is an important part of culture and everyday life in many countries, and for the followers of Hinduism slaughtering a cow or a bull is completely unacceptable (by the way, India is the second largest milk producer in the world after the United States of America).

However, the agrifood sector has many other ways to substantially reduce its contribution to climate change. For example, conservation agriculture (chisel ploughing, leaving plant residues or ploughing them into the soil, stubble planting, etc.) significantly decreases the environmental footprint of the industry. Increased crop yields also have a significant impact on emissions. Water bodies are also sources of greenhouse gases: with climate warming, there is a boost in such a phenomenon as eutrophication or rapid algae growth. Emissions can also be reduced through the competent use of this natural environment, including the development of aquaculture.

The most accessible resource is reducing food loss and waste. If we take the entire chain from the field to the landfill, the share of gases emitted by a decomposing rotten apple or animal residues is only a small share of all the emissions associated with the product throughout its life cycle. This includes fuel used by tractors, combines, and trucks that transported the product to wholesale warehouses and stores, packaging, electricity, staff salaries, and customer spending on spoiled products – everything that was essentially wasted, including the wasted environmental footprint of this chain.

If we now reduce food loss and waste by half (and they reach 25–30% in global food chains), then we will, first, significantly decrease the number of hungry people, and second, considerably reduce emissions in the agricultural industry.

How much has climate change already affected food production worldwide? Is this change beneficial or harmful for Russia?

Oleg Kobiakov: The negative consequences of climate change – an increase in the number of floods and droughts, the scale of deforestation and desertification, drying water sources, and more frequent pest outbreaks – affect all countries and regions and deteriorate conditions for agriculture and food production. We have no credible evidence suggesting that the planetary global warming has any positive effects that would outweigh its significant costs.

As for Russia, it is quite diverse in terms of climate, soils, availability of water resources, and seasonal changes. Lately, we have often been hearing that with the climate warming, the Russian North, including the permafrost zone, will become available for agriculture. Wheat will be sown somewhere near Vorkuta, and bananas and pineapples will grow in the Moscow region. Such expectations are unreasonable, since the north has completely different soils, a different water cycle and temperature regime, and insolation, to which existing crops cannot be adapted right off the bat. Producing drought-resistant crops for the southern regions is also a task that will take more than a decade.

However, we will still have to adapt to climate change, and in some places, we might need to reconsider the set of crops grown. For example, for the arid Volga region and further to Astrakhan, I would recommend taking a closer look at the low-maintenance millet, a partially forgotten but very promising grain, and its end product, groats of millet, which is beloved in Russia.

But what about bananas? Will we actually grow them in Russia or not?

Oleg Kobiakov: Projects to grow bananas and pineapples already existed back in tsarist Russia. The question is what the production cost of these products will be, considering the need to build expensive greenhouses, heat them, buy imported planting material, master specific agricultural engineering, etc. It is, of course, possible to grow bananas in Russia, but you will have to pay a steep price for such fruits.