World Bank warns that higher fertilizer and energy costs pose a threat to harvests after global food prices soar by more than one-third

• Rising prices are likely to exacerbate malnutrition and poverty rates, the bank's president said.
• The World Bank also said countries closing off food markets would exacerbate the crisis.

Higher energy and fertilizer prices as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine could reduce future global food harvests, the head of the World Bank said, risking further pressure on food prices which have surged by more than a third over the past year.

Speaking at a US Treasury event on tackling food insecurity on April 19, World Bank president David Malpass said that the invasion had "triggered major threats to global food and nutrition security." The World Bank's food price index reached an all-time high in March, he said, when prices rose 11.5%, and a year-on-year increase of 37%.

"In the near-term, there has been a pronounced spike in the prices of key food staples, including wheat and wheat substitutes," Malpass said. "Second, future harvests may be reduced due to higher energy and fertilizer prices. Crop yields all over the world depend on fertilizer and the price of oil and natural gas.

In an interview with the BBCpublished on Thursday, Malpass said that the world faces a "human catastrophe," with people in low- and middle-income countries facing the greatest fallout from the effects on food supply stemming from the war in Ukraine.

"It's a human catastrophe, meaning nutrition goes down. But then it also becomes a political challenge for governments who can't do anything about it, they didn't cause it and they see the prices going up," he told the outlet.

Prices of corn and wheat in particular have surged since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as conflict curtails production and export of the grains from the region. The two are key players in the global commodities markets, with Russia accounting for almost 17% of the world's supply of wheat, while Ukraine is a significant exporter of both wheat and corn, accounting for 12% and 17% of global supply, respectively.

The fallout of the conflict has also seen fertilizer prices soar, adding to farmers' costs, and further inflating food prices that were already sitting at or near record highs due to the pandemic.

Malpass said food prices of many different crops are being impacted.

"It's affecting food of all different kinds: oils, grains, and then it gets into other crops, corn crops, because they go up when wheat goes up," told the BBC.

The World Bank warned in a April 13 report that countries closing off food markets through trade restrictions and export bans would exacerbate the crisis.

"We also urge all countries to keep trade open and avoid restrictive measures such as export bans on food or fertilizer that further exacerbate the suffering of the most vulnerable people," the bank, the International Monetary Fund, UN World Food Program, and the World Trade Organization said in a joint statement on the same day of the report.

Malpass also warned that countries should not subsidize production nor cap prices, instead telling the BBC that the focus should be on increasing supplies of food and creating assistance programs for the world's poorest.

He told reporters on April 20 at the joint IMF-World Bank meetings that the bank has committed to its largest set of financing commitments ever as a result of the Ukraine crisis, totaling $170 billion dollars over the next 15 months.