Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that ‘Russia and Ukraine represent more than half of the world's supply of sunflower oil and about 30 percent of the world's wheat’ and that ‘grain prices have already exceeded those at the start of the Arab Spring and the food riots of 2007-2008’.

He told reporters that 45 African and least developed countries import at least one-third of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia, and 18 of them import at least 50%. These countries include Congo, Burkina Faso, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, he said.

‘All of this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe’, Guterres warned.