ReportWire

Tag: Wheat

  • Should We Fast for IBS? | NutritionFacts.org

    [ad_1]

    More than half of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) sufferers appear to have a form of atypical food allergy.

    A chronic gastrointestinal disorder, irritable bowel syndrome affects about one in ten people. You may have heard about low-FODMAP diets, but they don’t appear to work any better than the standard advice to avoid things like coffee or spicy and fatty foods. In fact, you can hardly tell which is which, as shown below and at 0:27 in my video Friday Favorites: Fasting for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

    Most IBS patients, however, do seem to react to specific foods, such as eggs, wheat, dairy, or soy sauce, but when they’re tested with skin prick tests for typical food allergies, they may come up negative. We want to know what happens inside their gut when they eat those things, though, not what happens on their skin. Enter confocal laser endomicroscopy.

    You can snake a microscope down the throat, into the gut, and watch in real-time as the gut wall becomes inflamed and leaky after foods are dripped in. Isn’t that fascinating? You can actually see cracks forming within minutes, as shown below and at 1:03 in my video. This had never been tested on a large group of IBS patients, though, until now.

    Using this new technology, researchers found that more than half of IBS sufferers have this kind of reaction to various foods—“an atypical food allergy” that flies under the radar of traditional allergy tests. As you can see below and at 1:28 in my video, when you exclude those foods from the diet, there is a significant alleviation of symptoms.

    However, outside a research setting, there’s no way to know which foods are the culprit without trying an exclusion diet, and there’s no greater exclusion diet than excluding everything. A 25-year-old woman had complained of abdominal pain, bloating, and diarrhea for a year, and drugs didn’t seem to help. But, after fasting for ten days, her symptoms improved considerably and appeared to stay that way at least 18 months later. It wasn’t just subjective improvement either. Biopsies were taken that showed the inflammation had gone down, her bowel irritability was measured directly, and expanding balloons and electrodes were inserted in her rectum to measure changes in her sensitivity to pressure and electrical stimulation. Fasting seemed to reboot her gut in a way, but just because it worked for her doesn’t mean it works for others. Case reports are most useful when they inspire researchers to put them to the test.

    “Despite research efforts to develop a cure for IBS, medical treatment for this condition is still unsatisfactory.” We can try to suppress the symptoms with drugs, but what do we do when even that doesn’t work? In a study of 84 IBS patients, 58 of whom failed basic treatment (consisting of pharmacotherapy and brief psychotherapy), 36 of the 58 who were still suffering underwent ten days of fasting, whereas the other 22 stuck with the basic treatment. The findings? Those in the fasting group experienced significant improvements in abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, loss of appetite, nausea, anxiety, and interference with life in general, which were significantly better than those of the control group. The researchers concluded that fasting therapy “could be useful for treating moderate to severe patients with IBS.”

    Unfortunately, patient allocation was neither blinded nor randomized in the study, so the comparison to the control group doesn’t mean much. They were also given vitamins B1 and C via IV, which seems typical of Japanese fasting trials, even though one would not expect vitamin-deficiency syndromes—beriberi or scurvy—to present within just ten days of fasting. The study participants were also isolated; might that make the psychotherapy work better? It’s hard to tease out just the fasting effects.

    Psychotherapy alone can provide lasting benefits. Researchers randomized 101 outpatients with irritable bowel syndrome to medical treatment or medical treatment with three months of psychotherapy. After three months, the psychotherapy group did better, and the difference was even more pronounced a year later, a year after the psychotherapy ended. Better at three months, and even better at 15 months, as you can see here and at 3:58 in my video.

    Psychological approaches appear to work about as well as antidepressant drugs for IBS, but the placebo response for IBS is on the order of 40%, whether psychological interventions, drugs, or alternative medicine approaches. So, doing essentially nothing—taking a sugar pill—improves symptoms 40% of the time. In that case, I figure one might as well choose a therapy that’s cheap, safe, simple, and free of side effects, which extended fasting is most certainly not. But, if all else fails, it may be worth exploring fasting under close physician supervision.

    All my fasting videos are available in a digital download here.

    Check the videos on the topic that are already on the site here. 

    For more on IBS, see related posts below. 

    [ad_2]

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

    Source link

  • Unbelievable facts

    Unbelievable facts

    [ad_1]

    Rye and oats were originally weeds in wheat fields. Over time, their seeds evolved to mimic wheat…

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Eat Quinoa and Lower Triglycerides? | NutritionFacts.org

    Eat Quinoa and Lower Triglycerides? | NutritionFacts.org

    [ad_1]

    How do the nutrition and health effects of quinoa compare to other whole grains?

    “Approximately 90% of the world’s calories are provided by less than one percent of the known 250,000 edible plant species.” The big three are wheat, corn, and rice, and our reliance on them may be unsustainable, given the ongoing climate crisis. This has spurred new interest in “underutilized crops,” like quinoa, which might do better with drought and heat.

    Quinoa has only recently been introduced into the Northern Hemisphere, but humans have been eating quinoa for more than 7,000 years. Is there any truth to its “superfood” designation, or is it all just marketing hooey?

    Quinoa is a “pseudograin,” since the plant it comes from isn’t a type of grass. “Botanically speaking quinoa is an achene, a seed-like fruit with a hard coat,” and it has a lot of vitamins and minerals, but so do all whole grains. It also has a lot of protein. As you can see below and in a series of graphs starting at 1:05 in my video Benefits of Quinoa for Lowering Triglycerides, quinoa has more protein than other grains, but since when do we need more protein? Fiber is what we’re sorely lacking, and its fiber content is relatively modest, compared to barley or rye. Quinoa is pretty strong on folate and vitamin E, though, and it leads the pack on magnesium, iron, and zinc. So, it is nutritious, but when I think superfood, I think of something with some sort of special clinical benefit. Broccoli is a superfood, strawberries are a superfood, and so is garlic, but quinoa? Consumer demand is up, thanks in part to “perceived health benefits,” and it has all sorts of purported benefits in lab animals, but there have been very few human studies. 

    The first trial was a before-and-after study of quinoa granola bars that showed drops in triglycerides and cholesterol, as you can see below and at 1:53 in my video, but it didn’t have a control group, so we don’t know how much of that would have happened without the quinoa. The kind of study I want to see is a randomized controlled trial. When researchers gave participants about a cup of cooked quinoa every day for 12 weeks, they experienced a 36 percent drop in their triglycerides. That’s comparable to what one gets with triglyceride-lowering drugs or high-dose fish oil supplements.

    Which is better, regular quinoa or red quinoa? As you can see in the graph below and at 2:22 in my video, the red variety has about twice the antioxidant power, leading the investigators to conclude that red quinoa “might…contribute significantly to the management and/or prevention of degenerative diseases associated with free radical damage,” but it’s never been put to the test. 

    What about black quinoa? Both red and black quinoa appear to be equally antioxidant-rich, both beating out the more conventional white variety, as you can see in the graph below and at 2:46 in my video. 

    The only caveat I could find is to inform your doctor before your next colonoscopy or else they might mistake quinoa for parasites. As reported in a paper, a “colonoscopy revealed numerous egg-like tan-yellow ovoid objects, 2 to 3 mm in diameter, of unclear cause,” but they were just undigested quinoa.

    For more on the superfoods I mentioned, check the related posts below.

    Isn’t fish oil important to heart health? Find out in my video Is Fish Oil Just Snake Oil?.

    [ad_2]

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

    Source link

  • How Healthy Are Ancient Grains?  | NutritionFacts.org

    How Healthy Are Ancient Grains?  | NutritionFacts.org

    [ad_1]

    Ancient types of wheat, like kamut, are put to the test for inflammation, blood sugar, and cholesterol control. 

    The number one killer in the United States and around the world is what we eat. As you can see in the graph below and at 0:15 in my video Friday Favorites: Are Ancient Grains Healthier?, our diet kills millions more than tobacco. What are the five most important things we can do to improve our diets, based on the single most comprehensive global study of the health impact of nutrition? Eat less salt, eat more nuts, eat more non-starchy vegetables, eat more fruit, and, finally, eat more whole grains. 
    Any particular type of whole grains? What about so-called ancient grains? Are they any better than modern varieties? For instance, what about kamut, described as “mummy wheat” and supposedly unearthed from an Egyptian tomb?

    After WWII, the wheat industry selected particularly high-yielding varieties for pasta and bread. Over the past few years, though, some of the more ancient grains—“defined as those species that have remained unchanged over the last hundred years” despite agricultural revolutions—have been reintroduced to the market.

    As you can see below and at 1:13 in my video, nutritionally, kamut and einkorn wheat, which is the oldest wheat, have more eyesight-improving yellow carotenoid pigments, such as lutein and zeaxanthin, compared to modern bread and pastry wheat, because the pigments have been bred out of the bread intentionally. People want their white bread white, but modern pasta flour (durum wheat) maintains much of that yellow nutritional hue. 

    As you can see in the graph below and at 1:41 in my video, modern wheat may have less lutein, but it tends to have more vitamin E, as seen in the graph below and at 1:45. Based on straight vitamin and mineral concentrations, it’s pretty much a wash. Both modern and primitive kinds of wheat have a lot of each, but primitive wheats do have more antioxidant capacity, likely due to their greater polyphenol content, as you can see in the graph below and at 2:00 in my video. To know if that makes any difference, though, we have to put it to the test. 

    If you expose human liver cells to digested bread made out of ancient grains (kamut and spelt), heritage kinds of wheat, or modern strains, then expose the cells to an inflammatory stimulus, the modern wheat strains seem less able to suppress the inflammation, as you can see in the graphs below and at 2:09 in my video. The investigators conclude that even though these different grains seem to be very similar nutritionally, they appear to exert different effects on human cells, “confirming the potential health benefits of ancient grains.” 
    That was in a petri dish, though. What about people? If ancient kinds of wheat are better at suppressing inflammation, what if you took people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and randomized them to receive six weeks of wheat products made out of modern wheat or ancient wheat—in this case, kamut? Same amount of wheat, just different types. If there is no difference between the wheats, there’d be no difference in people’s symptoms, right? But, when study participants in the control group were switched to the ancient wheat kamut, they experienced less abdominal pain, less frequent pain, less bloating, more satisfaction with stool consistency, and less interference with their quality of life, compared to the modern wheat. So, after switching to the ancient wheat, they had “a significant global improvement in the extent and severity of symptoms related to IBS…”

    What about liver inflammation? The liver function of those with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease randomized to eat kamut improved, compared to those eating the same amount of regular wheat, suggesting kamut is superior, as you can see below and at 3:47 in my video.

    People with diabetes, had better cholesterol and better insulin sensitivity on the same ancient grain, as shown below and at 3:57.

    And those with heart disease? They had better blood sugar control and better cholesterol, as shown below and at 4:03. 

    And, people without overt heart disease had better artery function, as you can see below and at 4:06 in my video.

    The bottom line is that findings derived from human studies suggest that ancient wheat products are more anti-inflammatory and may improve things like blood sugar control and cholesterol. “Given that the overall number of human interventional trials conducted to date are numerically insufficient, it is not possible to definitively conclude that ancient wheat varieties are superior to all commercial, modern wheat counterparts in reducing chronic disease risk.” However, the best available data do suggest they’re better for us.  

    Regardless of what type of wheat you may eat, a word to the wise: Don’t eat the plastic bread-bag clip. A 45-year-old man presented with bloody stools, and his CT scan showed the offending piece of plastic from his bag of bread, as you can see below and at 4:53 in my video. When the patient was questioned, he “admitted to habitually eating quickly without chewing properly.” 

    Whole grains—ideally intact ones and ancient and modern varieties alike—are an integral part of my Daily Dozen checklist, the healthiest of healthy things I encourage everyone to try to fit into their daily routines.  

    Whole grains are especially good for our microbiome. Learn more in the related posts below.  What about gluten? Also, see the related posts below. 

    [ad_2]

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

    Source link

  • Gaza residents raid food warehouses as ‘civil order’ disintegrates, UN says

    Gaza residents raid food warehouses as ‘civil order’ disintegrates, UN says

    [ad_1]

    Thousands of people in Gaza pillaged wheat, flour and other food supplies from United Nations warehouses, a U.N. agency said on Sunday, warning that “civil order” was starting to disintegrate in the besieged enclave.

    Israeli military forces expanded their ground operations in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing that the war with the Hamas militant group was entering a “second stage.”

    Israeli warplanes conducted airstrikes early Sunday near the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, in northern Gaza, residents said, after Israel claimed Hamas has a command post under the facility, the Associated Press reported.

    Israel says most residents in Gaza have heeded its orders to flee to the south, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north.

    According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), a local humanitarian organization, the Israeli military on Sunday morning issued a warning regarding another hospital, calling on the NGO to “immediately evacuate Al-Quds Hospital in the Gaza Strip, as it is going to be bombarded.” There have been “raids 50 meters away from the hospital,” PRCS wrote on X.

    The Al-Quds Hospital, also in northern Gaza, had already received a similar notice since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, but Palestinians say the facility cannot be evacuated as it hosts an intensive-care unit and children in incubators, as well as many displaced Palestinians.

    The Israeli forces have so far refrained from directly hitting the hospital after Physicians for Human Rights Israel, a doctors’ group, said it filed a petition with Israel’s Supreme Court claiming that Al-Quds hospital could not be evacuated.

    Israeli warplanes attacked more than 450 Hamas targets overnight, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, while more troops entered Gaza. Israel has been bombing the Gaza Strip since the October 7 Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 people and saw 230 people taken as hostages.

    U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday defended Israel’s campaign against Hamas amid mounting criticism of the Israeli military’s siege of Gaza. “What a lot of people are calling for is just a stop to Israeli military action against terrorists period. Just stop, no more, Israel cannot go after terrorists who conducted this largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust,” Sullivan said in an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “We have taken the position that Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorist attacks,” he said.

    Sullivan said the U.S. sees “an elevated risk of this conflict spreading to other parts of the region. We are doing everything in our power to deter and prevent that,” he added.

    NGO Save the Children has warned that a million children in Gaza could die as a result of the Israeli bombing, and from prolonged power shortages and the lack of critical medical supplies.

    Israeli airstrikes were reportedly carried out earlier in the vicinity of the Shifa Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital, also in northern Gaza. The Israeli military had no immediate comment when asked about reports of strikes near Shifa, the AP reported.

    The U.N. General Assembly on Friday adopted a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.” The Israeli government dismissed the U.N. resolution, saying Israel will continue to defend itself. “Israel will do what must be done to eradicate Hamas’ capabilities,” said Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N.

    Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, killing over 1,400 people. Israel has retaliated with daily airstrikes on the blockaded Palestinian enclave, killing an estimated 7,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

    [ad_2]

    Federica Di Sario

    Source link

  • Putin tightens grip on Africa after killing Black Sea grain deal

    Putin tightens grip on Africa after killing Black Sea grain deal

    [ad_1]

    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    African leaders have long been reluctant to criticize Russia and now that President Vladimir Putin has killed off a deal to allow Ukraine to export grain, they know they are more dependent than ever on Moscow’s largesse to feed millions of people at risk of going hungry.

    Having canceled the pact on Monday, Moscow unleashed four nights of attacks on the Ukrainian ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk — two vital export facilities — damaging the infrastructure of global and Ukrainian traders and destroying 60,000 tons of grain. In the latest assault, on Thursday night, a barrage of Kalibr missiles hit the granaries of an agricultural enterprise in Odesa.

    “The decision by Russia to exit the Black Sea Grain Initiative is a stab [in] the back,” tweeted Abraham Korir Sing’Oei, a senior foreign ministry official from Kenya, one of the African countries that has received donations of Russian fertilizer in recent months.

    The resulting rise in global food prices “disproportionately impacts countries in the Horn of Africa already impacted by drought,” he added.

    Sing’Oei’s was a solitary voice, however. Rather than reproaching Moscow, African leaders have remained largely silent as they prepare to attend a summit hosted by Putin in St Petersburg next week. This follows an African mission led by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last month to Kyiv and St Petersburg in a bid to broker peace.

    The diplomatic stakes could hardly be higher. 

    Putin had been due to make a return visit to Africa next month to attend a summit of the BRICS emerging economies in Johannesburg. That trip has been called off, however, “by mutual agreement” to avoid exposing the Kremlin chief to the risk of arrest under an indictment for war crimes issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

    Without the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered a year ago by the United Nations and Turkey that enabled Ukraine to export 33 million metric tons of grains and oilseeds, many African governments now have nowhere else to turn to but Russia.

    “It’s going to be based on political alignments,” said Samuel Ramani, an Oxford-based academic and author of a book on Russia’s resurgent influence in Africa.

    Comparing Russia’s tactics to blackmail, Ramani added: “They’re going to be offering free grain to some, they’re going to be selling to others. It’s full-fledged grain diplomacy.”

    No deal

    Russia said on Monday it would no longer guarantee the safety of ships passing through a transit corridor as it announced its official withdrawal from the deal, declaring the northwestern Black Sea to be once again “temporarily dangerous.” It followed up by threatening to fire on all ships going across the Black Sea to Ukrainian ports, sparking a tit-for-tat warning from Kyiv that it would do the same to all vessels sailing to Russian-controlled Black Sea ports.

    Over the 12 months it functioned, the grain deal helped bring down global food prices by as much as 20 percent from the peak set in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. It also provided aid agencies with vital supplies. 

    Russia repeatedly claimed it has not seen the benefits of the three-times extended agreement, however.

    Although Western sanctions carve out exemptions for food and fertilizer the Kremlin argues that sanctions targeting Russian individuals and its state agriculture bank are hindering its own exports, thus contravening a second deal agreed last July under which the U.N. committed to facilitating these exports for a three-year period.

    The Kremlin said Wednesday that it would resume talks on the Black Sea grain deal only if the U.N. implements this part of the deal within the next three months. 

    Propaganda war

    Another of Moscow’s criticisms is that cargoes of Ukrainian grain have headed mostly to rich countries; not to those in Africa and Asia bearing the brunt of the global food crisis. 

    Over the last year, a quarter of all the grain and oilseeds shipped under the initiative have headed to China, the largest recipient, while some 18 percent went to Spain and 10 percent to Turkey, according to U.N. data. 

    This is not the whole story, however. Trade data from the World Bank shows that much of the wheat exported to Turkey is processed and re-exported, as flour, pasta and other products, to Africa and the Middle East. 

    Most importantly, all grain that flows onto global markets reduces prices, wherever it ends up, counter the U.N. and others. 

    Russia has canceled the Black Sea deal and unleashed attacks on the Ukrainian ports of Odesa and Chornomorsk | Chris McGrath/Getty Images

    “It is not a question of where the Black Sea food actually goes; it is a question of it [bringing] international prices down, so whether you are a rich country or poor country, you can benefit,” said Arif Husain, the U.N. World Food Programme’s chief economist, speaking at an event on the Black Sea Grain Initiative in Rome recently. 

    These arguments have been at the center of a months-long propaganda battle between Moscow and Kyiv over who can rightly claim to be feeding the world and who is responsible for soaring food prices.

    In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the Kremlin’s narrative — that western sanctions are to blame — was quick to take hold in many parts of Africa. 

    Ukraine sought to counter this with a humanitarian food program, Grain from Ukraine, launched in November 2022, but shiploads of fertilizer donated to countries, including Malawi and Kenya, served to sweeten the Kremlin’s message.

    “A true friend knows no weather. A true friend comes to the rescue when you need them the most. And you just demonstrated that to us,” Malawi’s Agriculture Minister Sam Dalitso Kawale said upon receiving a fertilizer gift from Russian firm Uralchem in March. 

    Feeling the pinch

    Now, countries like Malawi need friends in Moscow more than ever. Not only does the end of the grain deal cut them off from flows of Ukrainian grain, leaving them dependent on Russian supplies, but it also pushes up prices. 

    Moscow’s withdrawal from the agreement is unlikely to have the same impact on prices as its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Over the last year, Ukraine has opened up alternative export routes and a slowdown in shipments moving under the initiative also meant commodity markets had been expecting Moscow to quit the deal. 

    While Ukraine can continue to export grain through alternative routes, these come with extra logistical and transport costs, squeezing prices for Ukrainian farmers, at one end, and pushing up costs for buyers, at the other. 

    For food-insecure countries in the Horn of Africa even a small increase in prices could spell disaster, said Shashwat Saraf, emergency director in East Africa for the International Rescue Committee (IRC). 

    Domestic production has dropped amid conflict and severe drought, leaving the region increasingly reliant on food imports and food aid. As such, higher food prices will hit hard, he said, adding that traders already report “feeling the pinch.” 

    With the cost of food rising, the IRC and other humanitarian organizations will be forced to either reduce the number of people they provide cash transfers or reduce the value of these themselves — and this at a time when the number of food insecure people is rising, said Saraf. “When we should be expanding our coverage, we will be actually reducing [it].”

    Slap in the face

    African leaders attending Putin’s summit next week will be silent on such issues, predicted Christopher Fomunyoh, African regional director at the U.S. National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and one of the Grain from Ukraine ambassadors appointed by Kyiv.

    But they must not return empty-handed again, he said. Russia’s discontinuation of the grain deal, following the South African-led visit to St Petersburg, is a “slap in the face,” Fomunyoh told POLITICO. “Their own credibility is now at stake. And my hope is that they will have to speak out in order to not further lose credibility with their own populations.”

    In 2022, Russia’s narrative was dominant in Africa, but that has slowly changed through the course of this year, he explained, adding that Africans were starting to see through Moscow’s propaganda.

    “There is always a time delay,” said Fomunyoh. “But my sense is that in the days and weeks to come, people are going to see very clearly [that] the destruction of infrastructure in Odessa, the destruction of stock, wheat, and grain in Chornomorsk is contributing to scarcity and the inflation in prices.”

    This story has been updated.

    [ad_2]

    Susannah Savage

    Source link

  • Ukraine’s bumper grain exports rile allies in eastern EU

    Ukraine’s bumper grain exports rile allies in eastern EU

    [ad_1]

    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    Ukraine’s farmers played an iconic role in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion, towing away abandoned enemy tanks with their tractors.

    Now, though, their prodigious grain output is causing some of Ukraine’s staunchest allies to waver, as disrupted shipments are redirected onto neighboring markets.

    The most striking is Poland, which has played a leading role so far in supporting Ukraine, acting as the main transit hub for Western weaponry and sending plenty of its own. But grain shipments in the other direction have irked Polish farmers who are being undercut — just months before a national election where the rural vote will be crucial.

    Diplomats are floundering. After a planned Friday meeting between the Polish and Ukrainian agriculture ministers was postponed, the Polish government on Saturday announced a ban on imports of farm products from Ukraine. Hungary late Saturday said it would do the same.

    Ukraine is among the world’s top exporters of wheat and other grains, which are ordinarily shipped to markets as distant as Egypt and Pakistan. Russia’s invasion last year disrupted the main Black Sea export route, and a United Nations-brokered deal to lift the blockade has been only partially effective. In consequence, Ukrainian produce has been diverted to bordering EU countries: Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

    At first, those governments supported EU plans to shift the surplus grain. But instead of transiting seamlessly onto global markets, the supply glut has depressed prices in Europe. Farmers have risen up in protest, and Polish Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk was forced out earlier this month.

    Now, governments’ focus has shifted to restricting Ukrainian imports to protect their own markets. After hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Warsaw in early April, Polish President Andrzej Duda said resolving the import glut was “a matter of introducing additional restrictions.”

    The following day, Poland suspended imports of Ukrainian grain, saying the idea had come from Kyiv. On Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, after an emergency cabinet meeting, said the import ban would cover grain and certain other farm products and would include products intended for other countries. A few hours later, the Hungarian government announced similar measures. Both countries said the bans would last until the end of June.

    The European Commission is seeking further information on the import restrictions from Warsaw and Budapest “to be able to assess the measures,” according to a statement on Sunday. “Trade policy is of EU exclusive competence and, therefore, unilateral actions are not acceptable,” it said.

    While the EU’s free-trade agreement with Ukraine prevents governments from introducing tariffs, they still have plenty of tools available to disrupt shipments.

    Neighboring countries and nearby Bulgaria have stepped up sanitary checks on Ukrainian grain, arguing they are doing so to protect the health of their own citizens. They have also requested financial support from Brussels and have already received more than €50 million from the EU’s agricultural crisis reserve, with more money on the way.

    Restrictions could do further harm to Ukraine’s battered economy, and by extension its war effort. The economy has shrunk by 29.1 percent since the invasion, according to statistics released this month, and agricultural exports are an important source of revenue.

    Cracks in the alliance

    The trade tensions sit at odds with these countries’ political position on Ukraine, which — with the exception of Hungary — has been strongly supportive. Poland has taken in millions of Ukrainian refugees, while weapons and ammunition flow in the opposite direction; Romania has helped transport millions of tons of Ukrainian corn and wheat.

    Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Poland’s Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki | Omar Marques/Getty Images

    Some Western European governments, which had to be goaded by Poland and others into sending heavy weaponry to Kyiv, are quick to point out the change in direction.

    “Curious to see that some of these countries are [always] asking for more on sanctions, more on ammunition, etc. But when it affects them, they turn to Brussels begging for financial support,” said one diplomat from a Western country, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    Some EU countries also oppose the import restrictions for economic reasons. For instance, Spain and the Netherlands are some of the biggest recipients of Ukrainian grain, which they use to supply their livestock industries.

    Politically, though, the Central and Eastern European governments have limited room for maneuver. Poland and Slovakia are both heading into general elections later this year. Bulgaria has had a caretaker government since last year. Romania’s agriculture minister has faced calls to resign, including from a compatriot former EU agriculture commissioner.

    And farmers are a strong constituency. Poland’s right-wing Law & Justice (PiS) party won the last general election in 2019 thanks in large part to rural voters. The Ukrainian grain issue has already cost a Polish agriculture minister his job; the government as a whole will have to tread carefully to avoid the same fate.

    This article has been updated.

    [ad_2]

    Bartosz Brzezinski

    Source link

  • It’s gettin’ hot in here: Europe’s year of climate extremes

    It’s gettin’ hot in here: Europe’s year of climate extremes

    [ad_1]

    It was (yet another) bad climate year for our planet — and an even worse one for Europe, according to the EU’s climate change service.

    Copernicus’ latest report, published Tuesday, paints a dire picture that is now all too familiar.

    Last year was the fifth-warmest on record globally and the second-warmest for Europe, where temperatures have increased by more than twice the global average in the past 30 years.

    The Continent also experienced its hottest-ever summer, marked by devastating heat waves and wildfires that destroyed over 800,000 hectares of land and caused a spike in carbon emissions.

    Extended droughts hit crop yields, with little hope in sight for a quick recovery. Unusually warm winters might be good for consumer energy bills, but without enough snow to restore rivers’ water supply this winter, farmers fear that the effects of last year’s drought might extend well into 2023.

    The combination of adverse weather conditions and the fallout of the war in Ukraine is creating the perfect storm for a global food crisis, with millions of people facing starvation. Prices of staple commodities like wheat and vegetable oils, which had already experienced volatility in previous years, spiked in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though early signs suggest the crunch might be starting to ease.

    Here’s Europe’s hot, long, dry 2022 — in eight charts and maps.

    [ad_2]

    Giovanna Coi

    Source link