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The last time wheat exports from the former Soviet space were limited, it was due to a poor Siberian harvest in 2010. Within a few months wheat prices doubled globally, tripling in the markets heavily dependent upon Russia’s low-quality output. The region most affected was North Africa and the Middle East. That instability generated the series of coups, uprisings and wars we now know as the Arab Spring. Big deal? Yes. But by global standards the damage was limited to a single region.
 
Compared to the smoldering torch of the Arab Spring, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will trigger a global firestorm. In my new book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, I use my trusty tools of demography and geopolitics to peer into the post-globalized future. In part due to American disinterest, in part due to Chinese instability, and most certainly in part due to the Ukraine War, we are getting a taste of what’s to come in global agricultural markets. And we are getting it right now.