Ukraine and parts of Russia are often called the breadbasket of Europe,

and that breadbasket is responsible for a huge chunk

of the global wheat supply, in particular, that wheat tending to be shipped to nearby African

and Middle Eastern countries, alongside European neighbors, including many of the most food-insure

parts of the world, like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia,

Haiti, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Many of these countries get a significant portion of their fundamental food supplies from global

programs, like those run by the United Nations. Such programs buy up large quantities of basics

like wheat and other grains and then distribute those basics to regions that are experiencing

food insecurity due to famine, warfare, or general instability, governments that fail to provide

for their people, areas in which sectarian or civil

conflicts reduce agricultural production, that sort of thing. So Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been

devastating already into the fourth month, because the supply chains that typically deliver

such food resources have been severed or entangled in such a way that existing supplies aren't getting to where they need to go.

Russia's expulsion from some portions of the global economy is partly to blame for this,

and Ukraine's inability to ship the grain it's already harvested is another part of the problem.

Some of that unshipped grain is being held by Russia, which is unsuccessfully so far,

trying to sell it after having captured it, and some of which is still held by Ukrainians, as of the day I'm recording this at least, but cannot be shipped via the usual Black Sea ports, which are currently blockaded by Russian forces.

So they're in the process, with the help of Western allies, of figuring out how to ship

large quantities of hard-to-move food resources overland instead, ultimately getting those

resources to the usual buyers, including those food programs, which in turn need to get them

to these often hard-to-reach, often landlocked nations.

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