Nearly 25 million tons of grain are currently stuck in Ukraine and unable to leave the country. As the world faces the daunting prospect of a major food crisis, the World Food Program has publicly called for grain to be allowed to flow out of the country’s southern ports. Failure could be catastrophic.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated during his recent visit to Kyiv: “It doesn’t serve anyone if [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s war is not just killing Ukrainians but is starving people around the world,” adding “we’re just looking to solve a very direct problem.”
As a major grain producer, Canada has the moral credibility to take a key leadership position to resolve this crisis. Putin’s actions to profit from the tragedy of others through his war, have flung basic questions of morality into the spotlight. This biblical struggle of good versus evil has never felt so strong in Europe since World War II.
Canada, along with most other countries, has the diplomatic capacity to solve what Trudeau labels a “very direct problem” with a very direct solution. Under the “Uniting for Peace” resolution and “Responsibility to Protect” (RtoP) framework, Canada must advocate that the United Nations (UN) General Assembly creates a maritime food security shipping corridor to Odesa and Mykolaiv.
The blowback of not opening these major Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea will be catastrophic. It will come in the form of higher global food prices, food security challenges and damage to Ukraine’s agricultural capacity that far exceeds the damage of the war. If last year’s grain is not shipped soon, it will rot in the ports, with the resulting impact reverberating through the supply chain.
The UN, the World Trade Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization are among a long list of agencies that have issued a warning about a looming hunger crisis that will trigger mass starvation, mass migration and political instability.
Some diplomats will say that Russia will inevitably block the creation of a food corridor at the Security Council, so why bother tabling the idea? But by blocking it, Russia would further alienate itself from many of the nations that voted against or abstained from condemning the General Assembly’s initial criticism of Russia at the start of the Feb. 24 invasion. It is these countries likely to suffer most from a global food shortage.
China, as a major investor and importer of Ukrainian agricultural produce, will be forced to reconcile its concerns about inflation with its pragmatic ambiguity of trying to straddle the fence between Russia and a global collection of countries that oppose Putin’s actions in Ukraine. Failure at the Security Council will push the matter to the General Assembly.
The General Assembly must factor in that the naval capacity of Turkey, the Middle East and northern Africa is sufficient to enforce a food security shipping corridor if opposed by the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. These are the same countries that are already suffering from price increases for wheat and showing signs of shortages.
Should Putin oppose the corridor, NATO may be swayed to deploy an appropriate and measured naval response. It’s a prospect that can easily awaken fears of a repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
At the moment, it looks like Putin may be tempted to use tactical nuclear weapons if he looks close to either losing the war or winning it. A fleet movement by NATO is therefore its best option to show a projection of force without engaging in ground or air combat.
A food corridor solution would offer a raft of benefits. There is an on-going economic cost to Canada, the U.S., the EU and others for supporting Ukraine, therefore outflows of grain would reduce the cost of the war to the Ukrainian economy and its allies that are propping it up.
Additionally, Canada or any other country that advocates the food corridor would win respect for the restoration of solutions driven diplomacy. The UN would in turn win back some badly lost credibility and influence if passed and enforced.
Finally, the poor in many countries would win since a food corridor would mitigate food inflation and stave off famine.
The question moving forward is whether the UN and associated agencies with or without a push from Canada are just looking to identify the problem or bold enough to stand up and solve it.
