This panel brings together experts studying the impact of the war in Ukraine on agro-food systems. While policy-makers, industry specialists, and scholars have been tracking trends in global and regional markets, less is known about the rapidly-changing situation in Ukraine’s agro-food economy that will have far-reaching effects on food security worldwide. The panelists will bring a grounded perspective on challenges that farmers face as they prepare for next year’s harvest; solidarity economies; changes in agricultural production and distribution patterns; the energy-food nexus; new policies and governmental support schemes as well as the issues surrounding the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

Panelists include Vitalii Dankevych (International Economic Relations and European Integration, Polissia National University, Ukraine), Natalia Mamonova (Institute for Rural and Regional Research (RURALIS), Norway), and Susanne Wengle (Political Science, University of Notre Dame, US). The panel will be moderated by Diana Mincyte (Sociology, City University of New York-City Tech) and Renata Blumberg (Nutrition and Food Studies, Montclair State University).

The event is part of the webinar series at the European Union Studies Center at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). It is co-sponsored by the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute. The panel is free and open to the public.

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PANELISTS:

Vitalii Dankevych is the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Public Administration and National Security and Professor in the Department of International Economic Relations and European Integration at Polissia National University in Ukraine. His research focuses on food security and the impact of the Russian war against Ukraine on global food supply chains. His recent post co-authored with Susanne Wengle and entitled “Black Sea Blackmail: Ukrainian Food Exports in War Conditions” appeared on the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) page.

Natalia Mamonova is a senior researcher at the Institute for Rural and Regional Research (RURALIS) in Trondheim, Norway and the coordinator of the European team of the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI Europe). She studies food sovereignty, agrarian transformation, civil society and right-wing populism in the post-socialist countryside. Her current research is focused on the impact of the war in Ukraine on the Ukrainian and world’s food systems. She recently published a paper “Food Sovereignty and Solidarity Initiatives in Rural Ukraine During the War” in the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Susanne Wengle is NR Dreux Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. Her research examines Eurasian agriculture and food systems, and other aspects of the post-Soviet transformation, including the creation of energy markets, the effects of sanctions, welfare reforms, and the politics of expertise. Her recent book, Black Earth, White Bread, is an interdisciplinary history of the Soviet and Russian agriculture and food systems that documents interactions between political projects, technological improvements and quotidian practices. She recently co-authored an article with Vitalii Dankevych “Ukrainian Farms Feed Europe and China. Russia Wants to Change That” that was published in the Washington Post.

MODERATORS:

Renata Blumberg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at Montclair State University. She researches the geographies of food systems in the US and Europe. Her new research project focuses on critical dietetics and feminist pedagogies. Her most recent paper, “Engendering European alternative food networks through countertopographies: Perspectives from Latvia,” was published in the journal, Anthropology of Food.

Diana Mincyte is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York-City Tech. Her research examines citizenship, subsistence, and self-reliance; food and environmental politics; gender and agriculture; and food-energy nexus in the Baltic region and the United States. Her new research project focuses on kinship as a form of social and political organization in agro-food economies. She recently co-authored a paper “The War in Ukraine and Food Security in Eastern Europe” that was published in Gastronomica.