Impacts of the Russia-Ukrainian conflict on the wheat trade in Europe, North Africa and Turkey =

This thesis focuses on the impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on the wheat trade in Europe, North Africa and Turkey. In particular, through a Systematic Literature Review, a corpus of eighteen papers is analyzed. The results answer three research questions related to the effects of the conflict on wheat prices, the diversification of wheat supply chains in the examined regions, and the logistical changes implemented to maintain efficiency and reduce the cost of grain distribution following the naval blockade. The results show a price increase due to export disruptions of Ukraine and Russia, two of the major global wheat exporters. This strongly affected North African countries, since they rely heavily on imports and impacted food security. For this reason, Europe and North Africa sought for alternative suppliers, finding them in United States, Canada and Australia. The analysed regions also look for alternative distribution paths and enhancing storage capacities, in order to mitigate supply disruption. Turkey played a role of mediator between Ukraine and Russia, becoming the Black Sea Grain Corridor to facilitate the export of Ukrainian wheat. This work offers academic and practice contributions, including a better understanding of the vulnerabilities of the global supply chains, recommendations to diversify sources and enhance logistic infrastructure, useful for both governments and companies. Since the conflict had major impact on the grain supply chains, this thesis provides some future research works, such as the analysis of the supply chains, logistic innovations and studies on post-conflict long-term evolution of the wheat market.