Soybeans during a harvest on a farm near Brasilia. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, food prices had been rising around the world, driven by the higher shipping costs, energy inflation and labor shortages that have followed in the pandemic’s wake, along with extreme weather. Global food prices are at all-time highs, with a benchmark UN index soaring more than 40% over the past two years. War in one of the world’s major breadbaskets, plus the sanctions imposed on Russia and measures taken by some countries to protect their own food supply have raised the threat of a full-blown hunger crisis. Here are some of the factors at work. Disrupted production The war in Ukraine initially slowed key agricultural supplies that the Black Sea region ships to world markets, from wheat to vegetable oil to fertilizer, as Ukraine’s ports were shuttered and vessels stayed away. Sales remain tepid out of […]