Cross-border food and grain trade, import/export policies, and global market impacts.
Tomato shortages and purchase limits gripped British supermarkets in early 2023. Decades of fixed low-price contracts had forced growers to cut production and offloaded costs onto migrant labour — while corner shops squeezed out by supermarkets became the only place left to buy vegetables in a crisis.
Once the grain corridor was disrupted, Ukrainian grain surged by rail, road and the Danube into southeastern Europe, sparking farmer protests in Poland, Bulgaria and beyond – yet Somalia and other nations most reliant on Ukrainian grain gained little. Around Odesa, farmers are forced to rebuild the entire sales chain.
