The war in Ukraine is likely to have immediate effects on many countries in the MENA region. Ukraine is an important global producer of sunflower oil and grain, and alongside Russia, it provides a third of the world’s wheat and barley. Russia’s invasion also will severely disrupt food transport logistics within Ukraine and across its borders due to the suspension of shipping from Ukraine’s commercial ports.

The war also comes at a critical time in the global agriculture calendar, falling at the start of the 2022 planting and growing season. This will likely severely affect the 2022 harvest, which begins in late June and is particularly worrying for the countries of MENA, which rely heavily on exports from both Russia and Ukraine. 

MENA’s reliance on grain imports 

Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat, and it obtains nearly 85 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. In early April, it was estimated that the country has strategic wheat reserves sufficient for 2.6 months before its wheat reserves are exhausted. Similarly, in Lebanon, where wheat reserves are expected to last only 1 month, the prospect of a steep decline in exports from Ukraine is likely to severely affect the country’s economy and food security. Lebanon imports around 60 percent of its wheat from Ukraine, and it lost its national reserves in the 2020 Beirut explosion. Finally, Tunisia relies on Ukraine for approximately 50 percent of its wheat supplies, and it has an estimated four months of reserves as of March 2022.

The possibility of renewed social unrest as ordinary citizens face the burden of increasing grain prices cannot be excluded.

What, though, might be the knock-on political, social, and economic effects of grain shortages? Historically, food price hikes have fueled social unrest in the region, including “bread riots” in Egypt (1977) and in Tunisia (1983). In Egypt, this unrest was precipitated by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank-driven termination of basic food subsidies on flour, rice and cooking oil. In Tunisia six years later, the riots stemmed from an IMF-imposed austerity program. Moreover, some have pointed to food price increases as a contributing factor to the 2010-11 uprisings that swept the Arab world.

The possibility of renewed social unrest as ordinary citizens face the burden of increasing grain prices cannot be excluded. Hamza Meddeb, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center observed in an interview that rises in food prices, coupled with the economic effects of the pandemic, are likely to “fuel unrest and displacement…particularly in countries already suffering from inflation and deterioration of purchasing power.”

More specifically, in Tunisia, food price hikes are likely to test Qais Saied’s presidency. Russia’s war in Ukraine is deepening Tunisia’s economic crisis and posing “important challenges” for the North African country as it emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, says the International Monetary Fund.   Meddeb noted that “illegal migration from Tunisia reached a record in 2021, when 16,000 [migrants] arrived in Italy.” This trend is likely to further increase in 2022 as bread shortages and prices begin to bite.

Finally, in Lebanon, it is estimated that half the population now lives in poverty and food inflation has been a recurring problem. The Association of Mills in Lebanon issued a statement declaring that the war in Ukraine had led to the cancellation of all wheat sale deals, leading to an increase in the price of one ton of wheat to between $45 and $50. To address this challenge, Lebanon is close to reaching an agreement with the World Bank in which the international agency would give the crisis-hit country a $150 million loan for food security and to stabilize bread prices for the next six months.

Countries across the region already are looking for ways to lessen the impact of price increases and secure other sources of grain. The Ministry of Agriculture in Tunisia, for example, said that the country has switched to suppliers from Argentina, Uruguay, Bulgaria, and Romania for mainly soft wheat, and France for fodder and barley. 

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the Ministry of Supply has looked to save on its food subsidy budget by diversifying the sources of Egypt’s imports of wheat. In 2021, Egypt purchased wheat from Latvia for the first time, and began accepting imports from other countries, such as France, Canada, India, and the United States. The Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture reports that Egypt aims to achieve between 60 and 62 percent of wheat self-sufficiency during this season, and the country has cultivated about 3.6 million feddans of wheat (equivalent to around 1.5 million hectares), which is scheduled to produce between 9.5 and 10 million tons. The Egyptian Minister of Supply stressed the government’s keenness to diversify beyond the 14 countries with which it currently has contracts. (In April, Egypt approved India as one of its wheat suppliers.) Finally, during a meeting with the French ambassador before the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, the ambassador expressed his country’s readiness to provide any amount of wheat.

Hydrocarbons and new Gulf relations

If many countries in MENA will be forced to radically rethink their grain import strategies in the coming months, the war in Ukraine is also reshaping geopolitical relations, as the West looks to shore up its hydrocarbon supplies. Shortly after Russia’s invasion, President Joe Biden looked to Saudi Arabia and UAE to help stabilize surging oil prices. Both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, are reported to have refused President Biden’s calls. This was interpreted as a reflection of concerns regarding the U.S. position on Houthi rebels in Yemen and the potential revival of the Iran nuclear deal. At least for the moment, as David Ottaway noted in an interview: “[Prince Mohammed bin Salman] has decided his alliance with Russian President Putin is more important, in oil matters at least, [than coming] to Biden’s rescue.”

In a soon-to-be-published Council on Foreign Relations special report, Steven Cook and Martin Indyk propose a grand bargain in which the United States would improve relations with MBS and make more explicit pledges to protect Saudi Arabia in return for a series of Saudi moves, from working to end the war in Yemen, to recognizing Israel and taking more explicit responsibility for the murder of journalist and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Meanwhile, European countries are looking to Qatar as a replacement for lost Russian gas supplies. The country has nurtured relations with a number of European importers in recent years, and has plans to expand its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production by 40 percent a year by 2026 through its North Field East project. Most significantly, since the start of the war in Ukraine, Germany has looked to end its dependence on cheap, Russian gas, signing a long-term agreement for the supply of LNG from Qatar and acquiring floating gas terminals to solve its lack of on-shore facilities.

Yet, in the short term, Qatar’s preference for long-term contracts and the shipping time for LNG tankers make it difficult for the country to further pivot its gas supplies toward Europe. In late March, Qatar’s energy minister, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, warned that Qatar replacing the Russian gas supply was “not practically possible” at the current moment.

Gulf countries see neutrality as offering the safest way forward, keeping open economic and geopolitical relations with both the West and East. Cinzia Bianco, however, notes that, when it comes to the Ukraine crisis, “neutrality will not be an easy option” for U.S. strategic partners. For example, Bianco characterizes the UAE’s abstention on the February 25 UN Security Council resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example of the country’s “extreme hedging,” which may prove unsustainable in the long run. Nevertheless, as Justin Alexander notes, the economic and political links that countries such as Qatar have with Russia may offer a diplomatic bridge between Russia and the West as other channels cease to function.

Shocks and Strengths

The invasion of Ukraine deepens and exacerbates already-present vulnerabilities in MENA countries’ grain import policies. Price hikes for bread have historically produced social unrest across the region, and are likely to do so again as the price of grain hits the pockets of ordinary Arabs. Going forward, to lessen the impact of global grain price shocks and shortages, MENA countries should look to cultivate food sovereignty at the national and regional level. This should be combined with greater flexibility regarding crop types and grain import-export logistics, as well as support for small and medium-sized domestic farmers.

In contrast, the invasion of Ukraine may appear to have strengthened the hand of states in the Gulf and underscores a continuing global reliance on oil and gas. However, this should not preclude the need for states both in the Gulf and in the wider MENA region to invest in clean and reliable forms of energy and prepare for a post-carbon future.