Agropolitics of the Russia-Ukraine War

“A century later, Russian babies will have their colorful dreams

after they eat their cereal and show

their gratitude to their grandfather Putin.”

The world oscillates between what is and what is seen. The historical depth of human politics is built on the visible; make it easy to convey/explain. A political institution is formed from this phenomenon, and those who appear always drink water from its spring. Is geography destiny? It is destiny. If you're sitting on top of the diamond mines, they'll trick you with the book, take the diamonds and leave. They say, if you have oil, deposit your money in our bank, they will deceive you again. If you have land, others have a right to it, and they will turn your neighbor against you. While doing this, it is not a divine hand; They do it with the big concepts that come with it. They constantly tell you to change, they bombard your generations with communications. If you feel bad, you will be embarrassed with your date. You are now doing many things without realizing it. Communication is magical, one day it's red, the next day it's orange. However, the only truth that does not change is the curse of the earth. They won't let you stop and rest. You turn into a weather vane from constantly chasing change and you don't realize it.

Challenging geographies contain their own solutions and tragedies. Russia is one of the best examples of this. If you have rye, buckwheat, wheat and potatoes in your hand, your culinary culture will be shaped accordingly. When you look into the depths of Russian history, agriculture and food have influenced this change, one way or another, under every major social and political change. Wars, famines, economic collapses have left deep traces in the memory of the Russian people. This is why giving up Ukraine, which is their granary, has mobilized this archaic self of them. That's what's going on. Visible and informal information has a crumbly relationship with reality, but these are not the main reasons. In this context, it is useful to look briefly at the agriculture and food potential of these two countries.

Brief notes on the history and potential of Russian agriculture;

• It is the largest country in the world with an area of 17 million km2. The total agricultural lands of the country constitute about 13% of the land wealth.

• While its irrigable land was 2% in 2008, soil renewal development programs increased it to 8%.

• The average size of agricultural holdings is 269 hectares, and 5 hectares in our country. Large agricultural enterprises reach 12 thousand decares. We show 2 thousand decares with our fingers.

• It is one of the top 5 producer countries in the world with a grain yield of approximately 130 million tons.

• It produces an average of 85.9 million tons of wheat, 20.9 million tons of barley, 13.9 million tons of corn, 4.1 million tons of oats, 2.4 million tons of rye and 892 thousand tons of buckwheat annually.

• By investing in sunflower seed production; surpassed the world leader Ukraine with a record level of 15.4 million tons.

• Continuing the national seed cultivation, which is a Soviet tradition; seed breeding and seed improvement studies continue to be an indispensable element of national food security.

Brief notes from the agricultural history of Ukraine;

• Approximately 71% (42.8 million hectares) of the country's land, which was the agricultural base of the Soviets in the past, is arable land; The total amount of agricultural land is 32.5 million hectares. About 1/3 of Europe's arable land is located in Ukraine.

• It has one-third of the world's most fertile black soil.

• Agricultural production constitutes 10% of the country's Gross Domestic Product and 40% of exports.

• Ukraine's rank in exports worldwide in 2015; It ranked 1st in sunflower, 3rd in barley, 6th in wheat and 7th in soybean.

• Ukraine, whose economy lost blood constantly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was left alone with economic problems with the 2014 Donbass war and the annexation of Crimea, apart from periodic developments.

• Since December 2015, Ukraine has refused to pay a debt of 3 billion dollars to Russia.

• Before the start of the wars, in 2014, the total grain harvest in Ukraine broke a record with 64 million tons.

• Ukraine, which is one of the world's top 3 exporter producers in Egypt; In 2012, a yearly 3 million tons of corn export contract was signed to China and in addition to this, China opened a 3 billion dollar loan.

• It is one of the largest natural honey producers in the world.

• On January 1, 2016, the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement between Ukraine and the European Union entered into force. (signed on June 27, 2014)

• With this agreement, 99.1% of the Ukraine tariff lines and 98.1% of the EU tariff lines were reset to zero.

• A small detail of this agreement: the value added tax in animal breeding was abolished and the foreign exchange indexed feed prices increased the prices in the domestic market, causing a decrease in production in the livestock sector.

The Curse of the Black Earth and Agro-Politics

The basis of agro-politics is the change in consumption habits in the world in the last century. The production of agricultural and food products at the beginning of the century covered a maximum distance of one hundred kilometers, except for strategic products. After the 1960s, with the increase in communication channels, the western type of diet has surrounded the whole world. As of the point we have reached, the visibility of food and gastronomy culture, population growth etc. With this, our desire to reach agricultural and food products has increased as never before. Everyone wants to taste and experience everything. These developments have deeply and silently mobilized countries with poor agricultural land and countries with self-sufficiency strategies. In terms of self-sufficiency, Russia has made the biggest success in the last 10 years. With its huge greenhouse investments, it now produces its own tomatoes.

Land purchases in Africa show the biggest data in terms of seeing how agriculture and food will be shaped in the next century.

Some of the Countries Lease Land in the World

NO	COUNTRY	LEASED AREA
1	USA	8,2 MillionHectare
2	UK	4,4 MillionHectare
3	Malesia	4,1 MillionHectare
4	Singapore	3,4 MillionHectare
5	China	3,1 MillionHectare
6	Brazil	2,4 MillionHectare
7	Turkey	780 Thousand Hectare(Sudan)

Note: Although the data are not completely reliable, they are given to the reader for general information.

According to the 2013 report of the World Trade Organization (WTO), 41 countries leased land in other countries, while 62 countries leased or sold their land to a second country.

Some of the Countries Lease Land in the World

NO	COUNTRY	LEASED AREA (%)
1	Liberia	No data
2	Gabon	No data
3	Philippines	5,2 Milyon hectare
4	Indonesia	7,1 Milyon hectare
5	Sierra Leone	(% 41)
6	Ukraine	(% 36)
7	Papua New Guinea	(%33)
8	Mozambique	(%28)
9	Tanzania	(%18)
10	Uruguay	(%18)
11	Madagascar	(%10)
12	Congo	4/1 of its land has been leased out(8.1 Milyon Hektare
13	Sudan	4,7 Milyon hektare

Note: Although the data are not completely reliable, they are given to the reader for general information.

The data above show that in the future, these will be the areas of conflict of agro-politics.

In this context, the source of the breaking point of the Russia-Ukraine war lies in the 'Deep and Comprehensive FTA' agreement signed with the EU in 2014.

The agricultural arm of Hassad Food, the investment fund of Qatar, is involved in the agricultural projects of Ukraine, Australia, Germany, Sweden, England, Brazil, Argentina, China, in the efforts to turn Ukraine's agricultural lands into an open market.

It is always useful to know and watch this. Investment funds of rich or agriculture-poor countries systematically purchase food and agriculture. Besides all these developments, one of the breaking points is China's purchase of land in Ukraine.

The Ukraine-China food cooperation program, with a total value of $2.6 billion, was founded by the Chinese state-owned agricultural company Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. and Ukraine KSG Agro company will buy 3 million hectares of agricultural land from Ukraine.

While this rate corresponds to 7% of Ukraine, it is a larger area than the Netherlands and Israel. Russia immediately reacted to this agreement and we took note of it, he said. Russia did not react more harshly at that time because of its strategic relations with China. Russia, which has been following the West's efforts to bind Ukraine slowly and deeply, has decided to war on February 22, 2022. In Ukraine, the granary of Russia, the bells will no longer ring as before. In this respect, the Russia-Ukraine war is the first agro-political war of the 21st century.

In this context, the biggest wars in the future will be in Africa. Although the largest share of land purchases in Africa belongs to China; Kuwait, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Sweden, England, USA, Jordan made serious acquisitions in the continent. Turkey made a strategic move with the purchase of land in Sudan. In Africa, the fate of the lands where the curse of the Nile passes will determine. The most interesting and striking of the moves made over the lands where the White and Blue Nile passes is the huge strategic cooperation agreement between Kuwait and Sudan. The content of the agreement is kept as a state secret.

Instead of the Last Word:

With the development of agricultural technologies, especially imaging tools, the questions are now on the table, where in the world what is planted, what diseases are in the product, what kind of price and marketing communication should we set up for the drugs of those diseases in that country. Very approximate yields of any product in the world can be calculated. The knowledge of the position of the food industry that will need the product is/will be marketed as valuable data. Together with the self-sufficiency strategies of the countries, the food crisis action plans will continue as the number one problem of the countries.

Kemal ÇİFÇİ

Sociologist

General Secretary of the Geographical Indications Association

Akpınar- Ankara- 06 May 2022

Source:

AB ve Dış İlişkiler Genel Müdürlüğü Dış Pazar Stratejileri Çalışma Grubu Raporu 2016
Ukrayna Tarım ve Hayvancılık Sektörü Raporu-2016 - T.C. Kiev Büyükelçiliği Ticaret Müşavirliği
http://www.kemalcifci.com/icerik/agropolitik-yuzyil-ve-tarimda-gelecege-hazirlanmak-78.aspx

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