The world remains very much a ‘state of chassis’ four years on

For the EU this proved an embarrassing anniversary, because a key member state – Hungary, with its pro-Moscow president – vetoed a long term EU support plan for Ukraine. This has cast big doubts over political aspirations that Ukraine could be fast-tracked to become an EU member state. Behind all the politics is another side to this equation.

It is also four years since global agriculture faced its biggest shock in decades. The loss of grain and oilseeds from Ukraine – once dubbed the bread basket of Europe – threw global markets into disarray.

At the same time the EU showed solidarity with Ukraine by slamming the door on Russian gas and fertiliser. The result was a time of inflation for both farm input costs and consumer prices for food.

Trading patterns in agriculture in place for decades were thrown up into the air.

Things have settled to some degree, but the fallout from the Russian invasion continues. It was made even worse in 2024 by the Trump tariffs, although the big losers from those have been American farmers, who lost export markets, and US consumers, who paid 90 per cent of the tariff bill. The changes to agriculture linked to Ukraine go far beyond short term impacts.

Europe is still struggling with the impact of closing its markets to Russian gas and fertiliser. Efforts by the European Commission to protect EU manufacturers have proved difficult.

Recent duties imposed on imports have cut back volumes, but increased prices for European farmers. At the same time manufacturers feel less secure about gas supplies than was the case when they could depend on gas from Russia.

The hyper-inflation in food prices a couple of years ago, triggered by a spike in farm input costs, changed the market dramatically as consumers sought to limit the impact of price rises.

This hit demand for premium, added value products and that market has not fully recovered the vigour it once had.

Instead we saw the rise and rise of the discount retailers and an explosion in supermarket own label brands.

This has made the retail sector much more aggressive in terms of supplier prices and as the weakest players along the food chain farmers always suffer the fallout. The recent boost in prices for some commodities was welcome for farmers. Beef prices hit record levels and have proved surprisingly resilient in the face of many people claiming beef has become unaffordable.

These are however short term impacts and they do not deliver what farmers really want, which is stability. That is an elusive dream, given the geopolitical situation. The world lacks political stability and that is getting worse.

If we could wind the clock back a bit more than four years, before Russia attacked Ukraine, we would be surprised at the stability we then took for granted. We did not appreciate how valuable that was, but we know now there is no obvious way back.

Making matters worse is that the United States has probably the most economically illiterate president in its history, who is alone in his belief that tariffs drive economic growth.

A lack of barriers to trade is the best road to global prosperity for all countries. Tariffs do not even work as a bullying tactic and in the case of the Trump tariffs the cost is being forced onto American consumers. The war in Ukraine shows no signs of ending. It and other global conflicts will not be changed quickly or easily.

That prize of stability in agriculture is set to remain elusive, with even the EU recently reporting a fall in its booming balance of trade gap between food exports and imports. European unity over Ukraine is more of a mask than reality; farming in the EU and particularly in the countries bordering Ukraine has been hit by it being treated akin to a member state.

Its chances of becoming one are more remote than politicians admit. The world is indeed in the “state of chassis” highlighted by the Irish writer, Sean O’Casey. But one positive for farming is that in challenging times agriculture is an industry better equipped than others to be resilient. That is, however, a greater challenge now than was the case just four troublesome years ago.