The Diplomat
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, yesterday called for “an urgent and concerted response from the international community” to avoid a food crisis in the most disadvantaged countries and most vulnerable to the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
During his speech at the informal Council of Agriculture Ministers of the European Union (EU), held in Prague, Planas appealed to “the responsibility” of the EU, as the world’s leading exporter of food, for the restoration of normality in the markets.
In this regard, the minister stressed that, in the same way that the EU effectively protects its own internal food security without fear of food shortages, it has to be “ready to respond” to the needs of many countries outside the European Union that have serious difficulties in supplying themselves and where the boom in the prices of the most basic foodstuffs implies the risk of political and social tensions. “Seeing the abnormally high increase in food prices, I think we have to give a coordinated response in the European Union,” Planas told the press before the start of the meeting.
Planas also warned that, to stabilize markets and to ensure food sufficiency, it is necessary that countries refrain from adopting “unilateral measures to restrict exports” and instead promote measures that facilitate “information and transparency”, such as the sharing, for all EU states, of “data on the availability of stocks of cereals, oilseeds, seeds and rice”.
On the other hand, and although Europe does not currently have a supply problem, Luis Planas warned that rising inflation, which is expected to moderate and go down in the coming months, reduces the purchasing power of families, “a latent concern in the Government, but it is trying to tackle with measures to mitigate the impact of the rising cost of energy and raw materials”. In this regard, the Minister of Agriculture explained that the crisis caused by the rising prices and shortages of raw materials is also accompanied by a sharp increase in energy and fertilizer prices, which may affect the normal development of crops and productions and does not favor the stabilization of markets.
