So she stayed, sheltering in her basement and cooking meals of snails — snail ravioli, fried snails, snails with garlic butter — for herself and the eight other people she took in.
The war’s disruption to exports of grain and other crops from Ukraine that feed the world has captured global attention and sent bread prices soaring across the world. But the production of other, more niche foodstuffs has also been impacted.
“Even before the Ukraine crisis, we were facing an unprecedented global food crisis because of Covid and fuel price increases,” Beasley said, according to the Guardian. “Then, we thought it couldn’t get any worse, but this war has been devastating.”
Russia and Ukraine together export some 30 percent of the world’s wheat, Beasley wrote in a March op-ed for the Washington Post. Plus, the two countries account for about one-fifth of global maize and barley, and nearly two-thirds of traded sunflower oil – of which Ukraine alone holds almost half of global exports, according to Our World in Data.
“It is a very, very frightening time,” Beasley said, according to the Guardian. “We are facing hell on earth if we do not respond immediately.”