@Chiron you might be mixing up food as a whole and grains, for which the Russians, Ukraine and Kazakhstan account for over 25% of all exports.
There were literally 200 grain carrying ships stuck in the Black Sea since this thing started, and grains are a primary staple for most of the world.
Staples like Grain and rice are what actually counts, because that is what the majority of people consume on a daily basis.
All of California's organic raisins and avocados and almonds probably fetch a pretty decent price per kilogram, so does my favorite, grass-fed Black Angus steak.
But those things do not feed the poor, the working class, all the subsistence level, soon to be refugees from the Middle East and Africa.
Planting and harvesting in Ukraine are fucked, and complex supply chains do not realign themselves over night, especially after the protests and after oil hitting 120$ a barrel.
I am calling it now, Putin will not block exports of grain outright, since between the sanctions and western shipping company spergouts it will be hard to get it where it needs to go, the insurance premiums for ships operating in the Black Sea also spiked to over 30 times the previous number.
You also need the ships, the ports, the trucks to move all that extra cargo around.
So Putin doesn't even need to block some exports for the time being, but he can be very selective with who he sells his grains to, that being allies and friendly countries, since most probably ships transporting that grain will be non-western.
The Gulf Arabs might control the West's energy, but Putin probably controls a decent amount of their food now, so you can see a "virtuous cycle" forming for the Russians, with oil exporters that are not self-sufficient in food having to ask more for their oil because of food inflation.Hungary, for example, already banned food exports.
Wheat exports by country in 2022 plus a searchable database of all wheat shipping nations
www.worldstopexports.com
The ships that move the goods, hummm:
Sanctions on the Russian-owned merchant fleet and/or sanctions on Russian commercial fleet crew could have a major effect on vessel availability over the next few months, according to Vivek Srivastava, senior trade analyst at VesselsValue. Srivastra said that potentially 7.4% of the world’s...
insurancemarinenews.com
Wanna bet all those Russians will be happy to work for the western overlords and the Twitter moron ragemobs?
As to handys, well:
handysize info
www.handysize.info
So, yeah, Africa and parts of the middle east are fucked, as are a number of smaller, poorer countries.
Congratulations, Neocucks, neolibs, and reddit spergouts, you got your wish and you broke international trade and capitalism far worse than the USSR ever could by going ideological.
At this point I am pretty sure that all the banksters and hedgies and the US FED are going over to Biden and the Stete Department and the Military-Industrial complex lobby and screaming at them: