Think cooking oil rationing is bad? I’m afraid things are about to get much worse

The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the greater the disruption and the greater the danger of famine, writes Hamish McRae

The world’s food supplies are going to be very tight (PA)

Quite suddenly a sign of a massive global problem has come to British supermarkets. They have started to ration cooking oil.

The problem is that supplies of sunflower oil have become disrupted because of the war in Ukraine, for it is the world’s largest exporter, producing more than half the world’s total. And number two is Russia. There are other producers, including the Netherlands, and other oils we can use, including rapeseed oil – all those yellow fields around the UK. But this is just one early visible example of a much wider and horrible matter.

It is that the world’s food supplies are going to be very tight. The longer the war continues, the greater the disruption and the greater the danger of famine. For this is not simply a matter of sunflower oil, or wheat, or any of the other food products where Russia and Ukraine are big producers. The greater problem is not specific shortages of individual foods, but rather the general shortage of fertilisers. This year’s crops are not so seriously affected, for much has already been planted. But next year and the year beyond could be dreadful.