U.S. and allies pledge aid, increased planting among farmers, to forestall food shortages from Ukraine war

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is sending shockwaves through global trade networks. The U.S. and some allies are taking concrete steps to try to avoid food shortages.

President Biden acknowledged the possibility Thursday while meeting with the G7 and the European Commission. "Western leaders, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, joined Biden in saying they would step up their hunger-relief programs and encourage their farmers to grow more food," reports Chuck Abbott of the Food & Environment Reporting Network.

In the joint statement with the EC, Biden announced the U.S. will contribute an additional $1 billion in humanitarian aid for people around the world affected by the war in Ukraine, and said they are also "identifying tools in the U.S. government’s existing food security tool kit and determining whether programs are fit for purpose for this situation and will make strategic adjustments as needed."

"Leaders of the House Agriculture Committee urged the administration to use money from a USDA hunger reserve, the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust," Abbott reports. The trust had more than $260 million last year. "Supply shortages or increased prices will disproportionately impact developing and middle-income countries that rely heavily on imports of food," the panel's leaders said.

The EC "decided this week to allow European farmers to plant crops on fallowed land to, in the words of Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, 'respond to the global needs for food'," Abbott reports. "Seven U.S. farm and food processing groups suggested that the USDA allow crops on 4.1 million acres of high-quality land now idled in the Conservation Reserve."