Export Bans on Malaysian Chicken and Indian Wheat Prompt Fears

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helped push global agricultural prices to soaring heights, some Asian governments restricted the export of products they viewed as essential to domestic food security.

For Indonesia it was cooking oil. For India, wheat. And for Malaysia, chickens.

The bans have a political logic: Leaders do not want to be blamed for allowing staple commodities to be sold abroad at the expense of low-income consumers at home.

But the bans risk hurting farmers and producers, and one concern is that the current cycle of protectionism could lead to restrictions on other food exports — including rice, a primary food for more than half the world’s population. That concern was amplified last month, when an official from Thailand said the country was considering setting up a rice price pact with Vietnam, another major rice exporter, to help the two nations boost their…