Jaishankar: Ukraine and Iran-Gulf conflicts risk food crisis — SkimNews
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- S Jaishankar warned at an Asia Society event in New York on Monday that the Ukraine and Iran-Gulf conflicts could trigger a "major food crisis" in coming months, on top of existing fertilizer shortages.
- Jaishankar said major grain exporters will not be able to send out shipments, particularly from the Black Sea, and flagged significant fertilizer shortages because key producers are in West Asia and Russia, with production affected.
- Jaishankar combined conflict-driven risks with climate patterns, specifically a super El Nino, calling the combined effect a looming food crisis at a time when "prices should be stabilised."
- Jaishankar described the energy situation as a "double crisis," combining the security of oil supplies with the politics of oil supplies, and said the market is "very tight."
- Jaishankar warned that during conflicts, money moves toward safe harbors away from the Global South, worsening finance pressure on developing economies already hit by energy and food costs.
- Jaishankar cautioned that the Iran-Gulf situation could feed the kind of political instability seen after the Ukraine war, saying India's neighborhood already experienced the "direct result" of that.
- Jaishankar publicly rebuked powerful countries for being "self-centred," saying policymakers cannot claim unintended consequences when their decisions push other nations "into distress."
Why it matters: Jaishankar is publicly framing the Ukraine and Iran-Gulf conflicts as a single interconnected crisis rather than separate geopolitical events, naming food, fertilizer, energy, and finance as four simultaneous shocks concentrated on the Global South. By criticizing major powers as "self-centred," India is building a diplomatic case that Global South autonomy requires more countries resisting pressure, with food security now the most urgent stakes.
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