Sara Menker, CEO of agricultural analysis firm Gro Intelligence, told the UN Security Council that the war in Ukraine "simply added fuel to a fire that had been burning for a long time," clarifying that it is not the main cause of the wheat shortage. However, Ukraine, the invaded country, and Russia, the invading country, produce about one-third of the world's wheat.

"I want to start by saying explicitly that the war in Ukraine did not start the food security crisis. It simply added fuel to a fire that had been burning for a long time. A crisis we detected long before the Covid-19 pandemic and which exposed the fragility of our supply chains," said Menker, according to a document released by the portal "ZeroHedge" and quoted by the newspaper Económico.

"I share this because we believe it is important that everyone understands that even if the war ended tomorrow, our food security problem would not go away anytime soon without joint action," she added.

In providing the data, Menker warned that due to price increases this year, another 400 million around the world have become "food insecure," adding that when it comes to wheat, the world has "currently only ten weeks of global consumption in stock around the planet."

"Conditions today are worse than those experienced in 2007 and 2008," she continued. "It is important to note that the lowest grain stock levels the world has ever seen are happening now, while access to fertilizer is highly restricted, and the drought in wheat-growing regions around the world is the most extreme in more than 20 years. Similar stock concerns also apply to corn and other grains."

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of preventing Ukraine from exporting wheat, which Russia flatly denied. Blinken claimed that Moscow is using wheat as a weapon of war.

"The Russian government seems to think that using food as a weapon will help accomplish what their invasion failed to accomplish, break the spirit of the Ukrainian people," Blinken said.

However, Menker noted that droughts around the world contribute to wheat shortages.

The Gro Intelligence CEO's remarks follow David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, saying that the world now faces "an unprecedented crisis," stressing that 49 million people in 43 countries are "knocking on the door of hunger."