Energy and fertiliser price rises are more damaging than food export curtailment from Ukraine and Russia for food prices, health and the environment

Higher food prices arising from restrictions on exports from Russia or Ukraine have been exacerbated by energy price rises, leading to higher costs for agricultural inputs such as fertiliser. Using a scenario approach with a global land use and food system model (LandSyMM), we quantify the potential outcomes of increasing agricultural input costs and the curtailment of exports from Russia and Ukraine on human health and the environment.  We show that, combined, agricultural inputs costs and food export restrictions could increase food costs by 60-100% from 2021 levels, potentially leading to undernourishment of 60-110 million people and annual additional deaths of 400 thousand to 1 million people if the associated dietary patterns are maintained. In additional to lower yields, reduced land use intensification arising from higher input costs would lead to agricultural land expansion of 130-349 Mha by 2030, with associated carbon and biodiversity loss. The impact of agricultural input costs on food prices is larger than that from curtailment of Russian and Ukrainian exports. Restoring food trade from Ukraine and Russia alone is therefore insufficient to avoid food insecurity problem from higher energy and fertiliser prices. While the Black Sea Grain Initiative has been a welcome development and has largely allowed Ukraine food exports to be re-established, the immediacy of these issues appears to have diverted attention away from the impacts of fertiliser prices. While fertiliser prices at the start of 2023 have come down from the peaks of mid-2022, they remain at historically high levels.  Our results suggest the costs and lower crop yields achieved through reduced fertiliser use will drive high food price inflation in 2023 and beyond. More needs to be done to break the link between higher food prices and harm to human health and the environment.  

This study demonstrates how modelling can be used to explore the complexity and interlinked nature of the globalised food system and to quantifying the trade-offs and synergies for health and environmental outcomes of difference scenarios.