>> There's been a significant amount of work on the relationship between hunger and unrest, conflict riots.

But here's one question that we as a community of global actors must ask.

Yes, we need the food.

But should the Russian government benefit from the purchase of that food?

♪♪ >> Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer.

And today, Russia's war in Ukraine already having a rippling impact around the world.

Supply chains disrupted, energy prices skyrocketing.

And most alarming, the number of people facing acute hunger, especially in parts of Africa and the Middle East, is rising precipitously.

We're going to talk about what happens when two nations that produce a third of the world's wheat, Russia and Ukraine, go to war.

My guest today, Ertharin Cousin, former director of the U.N. Food Programme and CEO of Food Systems for the Future.

And then these days, everything is political, even borscht.

Don't worry, I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

>> Dimitri, get me a writing desk.

>> [ Speaking indistinctly ] >> What?

IKEA left Russia?

>> But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> At antiwar rallies from London to Toronto to Istanbul, sunflowers have become a powerful symbol of solidarity for everyone standing with Ukraine.

Happens to be Ukraine's national flower and one of its biggest products.

Ukraine produces more than half of all sunflower oil exports globally.

That oil is used to make all kinds of things, including some of your favorite snack foods like chips and cookies.

The shortage caused by the war is already driving up prices for all those packaged goods, but also for all the other cooking oils that are being used as an alternative.

Now take a look at the flag of Ukraine.

The blue represents the skies and mountains -- got plenty of that -- rising above the yellow fields of wheat.

Ukraine is a global breadbasket and, combined with Russia, produces 30% of all wheat exports, 35% of the world's barley.

The timing of this war, just as spring begins, means that Ukraine's planting and harvesting seasons are disrupted.

Sanctions against Russia are restricting shipping, transport and trade, further limiting global food supplies.

Most at risk, of course, lower-income countries that depend on those grain imports, especially in the Middle East and northern Africa.

Egypt, for example, currently gets 80% of its wheat imports from Ukraine and Russia.

Further sanctions against both Russia and Belarus have impacted the market for fertilizers that are needed to grow those crops.

Combined, those nations export 40% of all the world's potash.

It's a key nutrient used in farming.

And all of this comes as the world was already experiencing record-high food prices brought on by the supply issues during the pandemic and the growing impact of climate change.

The United Nations Food Programme estimates that as many as 47 million additional people could be pushed into acute hunger globally because of the war in Ukraine and the disruption to food systems that it's caused.

That program's former executive director, Ertharin Cousin, is one of the world's top experts on food insecurity.

Here's our conversation.

Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, welcome to "GZERO World."

>> Well, thank you for this opportunity to talk about this very important subject.

>> Now, you have said that this is now a perfect storm in terms of global food insecurity.

Why don't we open up with you just explaining a little bit of what you mean by that?

>> We're seeing that now with the both wheat and corn prices doubling and continuing to escalate.

We also -- Another indicator was high fuel prices.

I need not tell your audience about the challenges of the -- of high fuel prices.

And everyone who's going to the pump recognizes how high fuel prices are now.

But that has a direct impact on the cost of food because of transport costs and the -- when there is an escalation in fuel.

We are now seeing as fuel prices increase, increase -- increases in the production of biofuels.

And finally, the fertilizer challenge.

The fertilizer challenge began even before the start of this year, where the International Fertilizer Association was suggesting that there were approximately a 30% reduction in the amount of fertilizer that was available in sub-Saharan Africa in particular.

And that 30% could result in affecting the -- of course, it does have results in affecting the yields and could affect the access to food for about 100 million people.

All of those factors came online even before the Russian invasion into Ukraine.

And so with all of those factors online and the Russian invasion, that's the perfect storm.

We know that approximately 30% of all the global wheat that is produced is produced in Russia and Ukraine combined.

We know that over 75% of the essential oils, particularly sunflower oil... >> Sunflower oil, yeah.

>> ...is produced in those countries.

And many would argue that that loss in production and distribution and transport of those commodities should only affect or would only affect those who import directly from Ukraine and Russia.

But in reality, yes, it does affect those countries.

But because of less availability on the market of stocks, it affects the entire global community because it raises the prices.

>> Yeah, those countries, we're talking mostly Eastern Europe, North Africa, direct imports from Russia and Ukraine of larger scale.

But these are global markets.

So, I mean, the prices are going up.

Prices are going up for everyone.

If supply chain is a problem, it's a problem for everyone.

>> Exactly, and that is exactly what we're witnessing.

And the challenge is that agriculture is a seasonal business.

And so we are seeing this with the spring wheat.

And now we know that the Ukrainians are not in the field planting.

And so we have the challenge of summer and winter wheats now.

And that means that we're not talking about a short-term problem here.

This is a much longer term of potential food challenge.

>> I know prices went up on food and on energy around the world in part because of supply-chain challenges with pandemic and suddenly demand just explodes and you don't have ships in place.

There's massive fiscal stimulus.

But what was behind the sudden lack of availability in fertilizers?

>> Well, the component parts of fertilizer also include gas.

All of those component parts and the availability of those component parts affected the production and resulted in higher costs as well as less availability of fertilizer.

>> Now I want to turn to Russia, largest grain producer in the world.

So much of the conversation in the United States is "we got to cut off their oil.

We got to cut off their gas.

We got to cut off their coal.

We can't give them that money."

I don't see anybody saying "we got to cut off their food because we need their food."

I don't mean the Americans, but poor people all over the world who are relying on food production.

What do you do when the country that's engaged in the war crimes is also absolutely essential to the supply chain for the poor people's food on the planet?

>> Well, indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the director-general has asked for an exemption for Russian commodities from the sanction with that exact thought process in mind, that they have such a significant effect on the availability of food for hungry people around the world, that that should be recognized by the global community and we should allow those commodities into the global food chain.

But here's the question that we, as a community of global actors, must ask.

Yes, we need the food.

But should the Russian government benefit from the purchase of that food?

>> How would you stop that, since they're the ones that are responsible for allowing or not allowing the export?

>> That's the challenge.

That's the challenge.

It's the true conundrum of should I allow the most vulnerable, particularly because that's who's affected with high food prices -- Should I allow them to go hungry because I don't want to financially benefit the Russian government?

And that's the question that leaders of the Security Council must make in making that final determination about the access to Russian food.

Because here's the reality.

If the Security Council says no, the nonaligned countries whose support you need to ensure the continuance of a global order that prohibits this type of behavior, you can't ask for their support for a political issue when their people are starving.

>> And you certainly can't do it when the Europeans are much wealthier and they're actually paying the Russians to get their energy.

>> That is the, as they say, the elephant in the room.

How do you say that it's okay to exempt the gas for Europe but not the food for the Global South?

>> Whether we're talking about the pandemic or whether we're talking about climate change and now we're talking about food, these global crises, and we kind of know who's taking it on the chin.

It's the poorest countries in the world and countries that, through 50 years of globalization, had hoped that they were going to be doing better over time.

Now it feels like it's crisis after crisis after crisis.

How is the United States -- How are the wealthy countries going to maintain any level of trust and alignment with these poorer developing countries through the kind of crisis that we are talking about right now?

>> Well, that's a really thorny but vitally important question.

The reality of it is the countries in the Global South are watching the decisions that are made to allow Russia to continue to sell oil and gas into Europe so that their prices don't go up and that they have access to the gas that they need while at the same time, we are suggesting that they sacrifice their access to food when they -- when we do not allow for an exemption from the sanctions for Russia to sell food to those countries when their people cannot afford the higher-priced food.

And many of these countries are continuing to reel financially from the investments that they made in supporting their people during COVID.

So their debt levels are quite high, their finances are quite low, and now they cannot subsidize and support the cost of food.

And so it becomes critically important that we move beyond platitudes in how we respond to, address and discuss with the countries of the Global South and begin to make the financial investments that are necessary that will allow these countries to mitigate, if not avoid, this high-food-price crisis, the high-fuel crises and their challenges with debt.

If we want to continue to maintain working relationships with them, with those countries, particularly when China continues to lead with an outstretched hand to many of these countries, both from a financial standpoint as well as from a capacity development standpoint.

So we need to realize we're not the only game in town that is in conversation with the leadership of countries that have historically been good partners and friends with the United States and the Western world.

But they live in the reality of needing to meet the immediate needs of their own people.

>> You know, last year, I guess, there were 9 million people that we lost on this planet because of hunger, because of starvation.

When you look at what we are facing, this perfect storm over the next one, two years, do you have any assessment of what that number might look like?

>> Well, we saw the increases, as you've just mentioned, in the number of those who lost lives.

And we've seen the increases to some 275 million who are acutely hungry now as a result of the COVID epidemic.

And that number increased by 100 million people between 2020 and 2021.

This crisis, if nothing is done, we could witness between 100 -- between 200 and 300 million additional acutely hungry people.

And that's not unusual.

The number did get up to -- The number of food-insecure increased to a billion with the 2008 food crisis.

And so those are not numbers taken from the air.

They are numbers that reflect the populations that are what we call hot spots, potentially affected, the number of people who are in the category of vulnerable, and their lack of access to food would then total that number that I've just -- that I've just articulated.

>> Now, when I think about massive food stress in the world today, I think about Afghanistan, I think about Yemen, I think about Bangladesh.

I'm wondering what you would add to that list, places we might not think about as much that are potentially going to slip hard over the next year or two.

>> Well, I'd start with those places, like the ones that you've just listed -- Afghanistan, et cetera -- but also Somalia, Yemen, northeast Nigeria, Ethiopia, places where we see very high numbers of acutely hungry today, because we know that those populations are directly dependent upon the World Food Programme's ability to access enough food to provide for the assistance that they need in order to meet their food-assistance requirements because they're in conflict.

I would also include countries like Haiti, Burkina Faso, Mali, Bangladesh.

And we can go through a long list -- Guatemala, places where you have populations that are vulnerable because the incomes are so limited and you don't have governments with the capacity to subsidize higher-priced foods.

>> Ertharin, you've been devoting your career to this.

And I want to say, I mean, at least before we close, I want to give you a chance to talk about what you think can credibly be done by the United States.

And I'm not just asking for "we need to put more money."

I mean, what are the programs, where are the places that we are falling down, the United States and our allies around the world, that you think a real difference can be made?

>> Well, of course, I must begin with the importance of ensuring that we provide the financial and food resources to the World Food Programme and the other humanitarian organizations that meet the needs of those who are most vulnerable, who have no other way of accessing food.

But I also think this is an opportunity for us to not build back better, but move forward better.

And that is we, as a global community, committed to $100 billion per year for adaptation for climate as a result of the Paris agreement.

The community has yet to meet that commitment.

This is an opportunity for us to begin to provide to the 500 million smallholder farmers out there the seeds, the tools, the fertilizer, as well as the technology and capacity that will allow them to increase the quality and quantity of their yields with less fertilizer and less water but what we call intensive -- more intensive agricultural production, that would give them the ability to begin to feed themselves in a much more resilient manner.

And so if we want to talk about how to address this challenge differently, to ensure that the next time we are in this situation, it is a completely different context that we are addressing, we must invest in infrastructure as well as in the capacity to support the increased production by local -- by those 500 million smallholder farmers.

Because remember, while we talk about a global food system, the 500 million smallholder farmers feed 80% of the people in their countries.

And so if we could increase not just their productivity, but how much of that actually is received by the consumer, we can begin to address this challenge in a very different way.

>> Ertharin Cousin, thanks for joining me today.

>> Thank you for having me.

♪♪ >> As you've just heard, food security is at risk partly because of the war in Ukraine.

But food is also part of the conflict.

That's right.

There's a battle over borscht, and "GZERO's" Alex Kliment is just the man for the story.

>> This is a bowl of soup.

Borscht, to be precise.

And this is the war in Ukraine.

What could these two things possibly have to do with each other?

Well, more than you'd think.

Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova had this to say about why Russia is so angry at Ukraine.

This isn't the first time that relations between Russia and Ukraine have soured over soup.

In recent years, Moscow has angered Ukrainians with tweets claiming that borscht is a Russian dish.

So what's the beef over borscht?

Well, various versions of the beetroot-based soup have been eaten for centuries, all across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

But most historians agree it was first made in what is today Ukraine.

And Ukrainians want credit for that.

The globally renowned Ukrainian chef Ievgen Klopotenko has led an effort to get UNESCO to recognize borscht as a uniquely Ukrainian dish.

He says it's about more than just what's on the menu.

But borscht isn't just high politics.

It's also home cooking.

Sophia and Mikhail Turovsky moved to New York from Ukraine in the 1970s.

They recently had me over to their Brooklyn apartment for some homemade borscht.

The Ukrainian way.

When I asked the couple about what borscht means to them, Mikhail the artist had a very different answer from his wife, Sophia, the retired engineer.

But there was no disagreement about where borscht is really from.

Still, when I tried to draw them out on some kind of deeper, mystical culinary connection to their homeland, Sophia shot me down.

For her, it's about something more personal.

Meanwhile, 5,000 miles away, Ukrainians continue to fight for their sovereignty, for their culture and of course, for their borscht.

For "GZERO World," I'm Alex Kliment.

♪♪ >> And now to "Puppet Regime," where Putin's war in Ukraine is leading to some supply-chain issues.

Roll that tape.

>> A growing number of cowardly foreign companies is leaving great Russian economy as a result of -- >> These clowns.

It's time to make list of enemies.

Dimitri, get me a writing desk.

>> [ Speaking indistinctly ] >> What?

IKEA left Russia?

Fine.

Just bend over and I will use your back.

Bring me a laptop.

>> [ Speaking indistinctly ] >> What, Apple and IBM too?

>> [ Speaking indistinctly ] >> God, this is bad.

Okay, at least order me some pen and papers on Amazon.

>> [ Speaking indistinctly ] >> Amazon too?

Looks like Jeff Bezos has a soul after all.

Okay, get a bag of dollars and put your fat butt on a plane to -- >> [ Speaking indistinctly ] >> Oh, no dollars or planes either?

Gah, where the heck can we get anything in this Russia anymore?

[ Ringtone plays ] Hello?

>> Hello, Vladimir, it's Xi Jinping here.

As you know, our friendship has no limits.

So I'd love to help you out in exchange for every single gas field, oil field, grain field, mine field, diamond mine, steel plant, real plant, sunrise, sunset, baby shark, barbershop... >> "Puppet Regime"!

>> That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you like what you see or you're just concerned and want to stock your root cellar, and I know you have a root cellar because we're worried about global food, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by...