The 2022 food crisis was driven by a collision of forces: a major war disrupting grain exports, skyrocketing fertilizer costs, and a wave of export bans that made everything worse. Global food prices hit an all-time high in March 2022, and the effects rippled through every region of the world. No single cause explains the crisis. It was a chain reaction.
The War in Ukraine Removed a Major Grain Supplier
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was the single biggest trigger. Ukraine ranked as the world’s fifth-largest wheat exporter, supplying 9% of all wheat traded globally. It was even more dominant in other crops: third in barley at 17% of global exports, and the top exporter of sunflower oil, accounting for 46% of all sunflower oil traded worldwide. Ukraine produces roughly one-third of the entire global sunflower oil supply.
When the war began, Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea were blockaded or destroyed. Farmers couldn’t plant spring crops in active combat zones. Grain that had already been harvested sat in silos with no way to ship it. Countries in North Africa and the Middle East that depended heavily on Ukrainian wheat, like Egypt and Lebanon, suddenly faced the prospect of not having enough bread flour. The disruption wasn’t theoretical. Ships couldn’t move, and millions of tons of grain were stranded.
Fertilizer Prices Had Already Spiked
Even before the invasion, the food system was under pressure. Fertilizer prices began surging in late 2021, driven by rising natural gas costs. Natural gas is the primary raw material in producing nitrogen-based fertilizers, so when energy prices climbed, fertilizer followed. By December 2021, the price of anhydrous ammonia (the most common nitrogen fertilizer) had increased 235% over the previous year. Urea rose 149%, and liquid nitrogen solutions jumped 192%.
These increases hit right before the 2022 planting season in the Northern Hemisphere. Farmers everywhere faced a brutal choice: pay dramatically more for fertilizer, use less of it and accept lower yields, or skip planting certain fields entirely. In wealthier countries, higher input costs translated into higher grocery prices. In poorer countries, they translated into less food being grown, period. Russia, one of the world’s largest fertilizer exporters, compounded the problem when sanctions and shipping disruptions reduced its fertilizer shipments.
Countries Hoarded What They Had
As prices climbed and supplies tightened, governments panicked. Dozens of countries imposed export bans or restrictions on staple foods, trying to protect their domestic supplies. The logic was straightforward: if food is getting scarce globally, keep yours at home. But when many countries do this simultaneously, it drains the global market even further and drives prices higher for everyone else.
The World Bank tracked the restrictions as they multiplied through 2022. Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer, imposed export taxes on palm oil in March. Turkey banned exports of cooking oils the same month. Serbia blocked exports of wheat, corn, flour, and sunflower oil. Kazakhstan banned wheat and wheat flour exports. Kosovo restricted wheat, corn, flour, vegetable oil, salt, and sugar. Afghanistan, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan all imposed their own wheat export bans. Lebanon went further than most, banning exports of meat, fish, potatoes, fruits, vegetables, oil, milk, and more with no set end date.
Each ban made sense from an individual country’s perspective. Collectively, they created a feedback loop: restrictions reduced global supply, which raised prices, which triggered more restrictions.
Global Food Prices Hit a Record
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization tracks a composite index of global food commodity prices. In March 2022, that index reached its highest point ever recorded. By the time prices began easing later in the year, the index had dropped about 22% from that peak, but it remained elevated compared to pre-crisis levels. Cooking oil and cereal prices were hit hardest, reflecting the loss of Ukrainian sunflower oil and grain exports.
For consumers in wealthy nations, this mostly meant higher grocery bills. For the roughly 800 million people worldwide who were already food insecure before 2022, it meant skipping meals or going hungry. Countries that imported most of their grain, particularly in East Africa and the Middle East, were especially vulnerable because they had few alternatives when their usual suppliers disappeared from the market.
COVID Supply Chain Problems Lingered
The pandemic’s aftereffects were still disrupting food systems in 2022. Container shipping costs remained elevated. Labor shortages affected farms, processing plants, and trucking. Drought in key agricultural regions, including parts of the western United States, East Africa, and South America, further tightened supplies for specific crops. None of these factors alone would have caused a crisis, but layered on top of the war, energy costs, and export bans, they removed whatever cushion the global food system might have had.
Why It All Happened at Once
The modern food system is globally interconnected in ways that create efficiency in normal times and fragility in abnormal ones. A country like Egypt can import affordable wheat from Ukraine year after year, which works well until a war shuts off the supply. Fertilizer can be produced cheaply using Russian natural gas, until it can’t. The system had no meaningful buffer. Global grain reserves were already declining before the war, and when multiple shocks hit simultaneously, there was nothing to absorb them.
The 2022 food crisis wasn’t caused by an absolute failure to produce enough food worldwide. It was caused by food being in the wrong places, too expensive to buy, or blocked from moving where it was needed. The Black Sea grain deal brokered by the UN and Turkey in July 2022 eventually reopened some Ukrainian exports and helped ease prices, but millions of people had already been pushed into hunger by then.