The World Bank on Monday said that recent commodity price shocks, particularly in food and energy, are likely to be felt by people around the world.
This was disclosed in the international financial institution’s Commodity Markets Outlook cited by AMBusiness.
According to World Bank’s Senior Economist, Peter Nagle, Ukraine and Russia are both large exporters of wheat. Together, they account for one-quarter of global wheat exports. With disruptions of exports resulting from the war, the prices of food will see a dramatic increase.
Nagle noted that this would be an issue for countries in the Middle East and North Africa in particular since they rely on Russia and Ukraine for a very large share of their wheat imports
Fertilizers have also seen a rise in price due to the increase in the price of natural gas from which they are made.
Concerns were raised about the likely reduction of agricultural yields due to farmers having to use fewer fertilizers in developing economies.
“For the poorer households, this is particularly bad, because they spend a larger share of their income on food and energy. They are particularly vulnerable to this increase in price”, the economist said.
