Prices of food, fertilizer remain high as war adds to inflation (KATV) 

KATV published an article on how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is harming the global food supply so severely it may lead to a worldwide shortage. Ukraine’s wheat exports have been dramatically cut since Russia invaded in February. The prices of food and fertilizers were up before Russia’s invasion due to disruptions in the global supply chain and coronavirus pandemic-induced problems with the world’s economies, but the situation has been exacerbated by the blockade of Ukrainian exports. According to senior research fellow Joseph Glauber said, “In the U.S. and other rich countries, the underwhelming supply of wheat, corn, and vegetable oils won’t lead to empty shelves but will help keep the cost of food high.” Other inflationary pressures like higher labor and transportation costs are playing a bigger factor at the checkout line than shortages in global commodities. “For food inflation here in the U.S., it’s the other 75 percent of the added value that also is seeing inflationary pressures right now. You have higher energy costs, you have labor costs, you have transportation costs, all those things have gone (up).” “High prices for poor countries are a big deal,” Glauber said. “In particular, for countries where wheat is such an enormous calorie source, they have to they end up providing a lot of subsidies through their safety net programs.”  “You want to let markets essentially take care of this. Markets will do a good job of sending price signals to farmers around the world to plant more,” Glauber said. “It’s going to take time, but you don’t want to get in as a government and start saying, ‘well, we’re going to subsidize this crop over that crop’ thinking you know better than the market because I think that that could lead to unintended consequences.” Glauber also stated taht “The problem with export restrictions. It can be contagious. “It can create problems that other countries then will put on export bans and so ultimately, it can end up just really skyrocketing (and) make a bad situation far worse.”