South Asian countries may see fertilizers scarcity in the next crop cycle as a result of the conflict situation in Ukraine and Russia, cautioned Bram Govaerts, Director General of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) and the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA).
Dr. Govaerts, who is here to address a two-day high-level conference of South Asian countries on “Agriculture Research for Development,” said the big challenge was how to feed the world, which arose because of the three sub-challenges — climate change, COVID-19 and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The meet, which began on Thursday, is specifically discussing the foodgrain situation in Sri Lanka and the impact of the recent floods on Pakistan’s food security.
Talking to a select group of journalists, Dr. Govaerts said the world was seeing fragility on the food systems. On the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he said the world needed to dissect the impact of it. “The first impact was that 25% of the grains globally stuck not reaching the areas where it should have reached. The number two impact is on fertilizers. A lot of fertilizers is also coming from this area. But that fertilizer scarcity is going to impact only in the next growing season, but this will have an impact on the whole world not only in those areas that import wheat from the conflict-hit regions,” he said.
