‘Major food crisis’ likely in coming months amid West Asia and Russia wars, warns S Jaishankar

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has warned that there may be a “major food crisis” in the coming months amid fertiliser shortages and disruptions in grain shipments caused by the wars in Ukraine and West Asia.

On top of it, “there’s the super El Niño”, said Jaishankar while speaking at an event hosted at Asia Society in New York on Monday.

The El Niño phenomenon involves the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific. It typically occurs every few years and has been linked to crop damage, fires and flash floods.

On Tuesday, the Union government revised its food grain production target to 373.9 million tonnes for 2026-’27, which is 2.6 million tonnes lower than the estimated output in 2025-’26, reported The Indian Express. The decision was taken in view of the situation created by El Niño, said Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Additionally, India’s fertiliser industry is reeling under the disruption in energy supplies from West Asia amid the conflict there. The industry depends heavily on liquefied natural gas imported from the region as raw material to manufacture fertilisers domestically.

India also directly imports finished products such as urea and diammonium phosphate from Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. With the Strait of Hormuz largely shut since the...

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