Thousands of Moroccans staged nationwide protests in cities
throughout the Kingdom on Sunday to complain about the soaring cost of
living [screenshot: africanews]
Morocco, which has a relatively stable economy, has seen an uptick in protests against rising food costs. On 20 February
thousands of Moroccans took part in nation-wide marches. The choice of
date by organisers was anything but incidental. On that same day in
2011 Morocco was rocked by street protests calling for democracy and
freedom. The kingdom, as with other Maghreb countries, has suffered
severe drought which has forced greater reliance on imported cereals and
sunflower oil. A government policy, in place for more than a decade,
that saw an emphasis placed on growing food for export to Europe with a concomitant reduction on land used to grow cereals has further exacerbated an already challenging situation.
Syria imports 50% of its grains. Ukraine and Russia are responsible
for 61% of wheat, 42% of barley and 20% of corn imports. The country, as
Suhail al-Ghazi of the Center for Middle East Studies notes,
was already facing financial difficulties purchasing Russian wheat with
prices at their highest in 14 years. He adds: “Russia is facing
unprecedented western sanctions that are hurting the economy and may be
reluctant to simply send free wheat to Syria.”
Yemen, after seven years of war, faces an extremely dire situation. The World Food Programme says:
The current level of hunger in Yemen is unprecedented
and is causing severe hardship for millions of people. Despite ongoing
humanitarian assistance, 17.4 million Yemenis are food insecure. The
number of food insecure people is projected to go up to 19 million by
December 2022....2.2 million children under 5 (are) requiring treatment
for acute malnutrition.
Yemen imports 40% of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia and Reuters is reporting that panic buying has begun as prices rocket.
In her study Fedirka notes the other punch that has hit these
countries hard: shortages and the rapidly rising price of fertilizer:
The market for fertilizers – especially nitrogen-based
fertilizers – is already outpricing certain crops for production.
Russian sanctions didn’t affect fertilizer exports simply because they
were already off the market as of the end of last year, and there was no
guarantee even absent a war that Russia would resume exports come May.
New sanctions have, however, dealt a major blow to fertilizers
through Belarus, which provided 17 percent of the world’s potash
fertilizer exports. Adding Russia to the mix brings that figure up to 30
percent of potash fertilizer that is no longer available on world
markets.
There are other sources for fertilizer including Algeria
but the challenge will be to get it to market in enough time and at a
manageable price to service grain, corn and sunflower crops in 2021.
Meanwhile, as Putin continues his war of attrition, spring planting due
to start in Ukraine at the end of the month will be difficult if not
impossible. Without the Ukrainian ‘breadbasket’ the crisis for MENA’s
food insecure countries will deepen and with it the potential for unrest
that could rival that which challenged authoritarian regimes across the
region and saw the fall of dictators in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia in
2011.