Experts expect Asia to weather impact of Russia-Ukraine war despite immediate risks

Raimondo Serra, the European Union’s directorate-general for agriculture and rural development for Asia and Australia, added that the Russian war had not only led to a spike in food prices but it had also hiked the cost of farming, as Russia is one of the world’s major exporters of fertilisers.

In his opinion, although most Asian countries are far from the battlefield in Ukraine, they are still the indirect victims of the Russian invasion because the war has led to a sharp increase in the price of natural gas, a key ingredient in fertilisers.

Serra said higher fertiliser prices were making the world’s food supply more expensive and less abundant. This situation comes at a time when the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reported recently that the world food-price index in March had reached the highest level since records were kept in 1990.

However, overall Asia could manage to…