Emergency grain stockpiling highlights worlds food worries

Combines load wheat into trucks in a field during harvest near the village of Solyanoye in the Omsk region, Russia, 8 September 2022. Photo: REUTERS

Norway is building a grain stockpile to prepare for a potential crisis. To help shield the country from any trade disruptions or harvest failures, up to 82,500 tons of state-owned grains will be stored by private companies. The government plans to have enough milling wheat to last three months by 2029.

"This is about being prepared for the unthinkable," Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said when the plan was announced last week. The measures are a success for the agrarian Center Party, a coalition partner, which for years has advocated for grain reserves and needs revived support from their farmer voter base ahead of next year's election. But the move resonates beyond domestic politics, pointing to a deeper anxiety over food.

Governments around the world are fretting over securing supplies for growing populations. In recent years, supply chains have been hit by shocks such as the Covid pandemic, Russia's war in Ukraine, crop-export bans, shipping disruptions and erratic weather. High grocery costs have strained consumers, making food and farming one of the key issues in election campaigns.

"We are living in a world of overlapping emergencies," said Isabella Weber, of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "More shocks are likely to come, which means that the price volatility in these essential commodities is likely to continue to be high."

That risks leading to inflation and contributing to macroeconomic instability, raising questions about what can be done in a sector like food, she said in an interview.

Weber, the economics professor who has spoken about "sellers' inflation," is reviving the case for global buffer stocks to cushion nations against commodity price volatility and deter price gouging, according to a paper published last month. The potential payoffs are large because shocks and price spikes in essential sectors such as food matter and can impact general inflation, she said.

Still, stockpiling is expensive, uses a lot of infrastructure and needs to be managed properly given the perishable nature of food, according to Chris Hegadorn, adjunct professor of global food politics at Sciences Po in Paris.

Hegadorn, a food security expert and retired US diplomat, held a food crisis wargaming workshop earlier this year, with EU and government officials among attendees. Participants suggested that the bloc considers a reserve management program and allocating a share of its agricultural budget to upgrade and create new storage facilities.

"Countries are getting more and more nervous," Hegadorn said. "We are all pretty much aware that climate change is making food and farming harder for everybody. Price volatility continues to be a major problem that countries are looking for extra security."