Using data from Planet Labs satellites and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 mission, as well as economic data, NASA Harvest scientists tracked the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on the global food system. This is reported on the portal SciTechDaily.
“The world’s breadbasket is at war,” said NASA Harvest Program Director Inbal Becker-Reshef. Before the war, Ukraine supplied 46% of world exports of sunflower oil, 9% of wheat exports, 17% of barley and 12% of corn on world markets, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture (Ukraine and Russia together account for 73% of sunflower oil exports, 33% of wheat and 27% barley.) The last few months have significantly disrupted this food flow.
“We are in the early stages of a food crisis that will affect every country and person on Earth in some way,” Becker-Reshef said. For some populations, this could mean higher prices or out of stock at the grocery store. For others, history shows it could mean more severe food shortages.
The map shows the distribution of spring and winter crops in Ukraine as of June 13, 2022. It also shows where farmers worked freely and where their land was under Russian control. According to an analysis by NASA Harvest, approximately 22% of Ukraine’s agricultural land, including 28% of winter and 18% of spring, is under Russian control.