The war in Ukraine is unlikely to lead to any food shortages in Croatia, but the conflict will push food prices up as materials used for farming are becoming significantly more expensive, Jutarnji List daily said on Friday, citing local food supply experts.

The war in Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions imposed on Russia have greatly disrupted global commodity markets, as Ukraine and Russia are major exporters and suppliers of a various commodities such as cereals and oil plants, as well as energy, and ores and materials such as aluminum and steel.

“Russia is the world’s 8th largest producers of beet sugar, and Ukraine is a major producer and exporter of fertilizer. All of this indicates that higher prices of farming products, as well as food, can be expected, across all of Europe and probably in the rest of the world,” Jutarnji List said.

There is no doubt that the war in Ukraine will also affect Croatia’s farming, but Croatian experts said that there should be no major problems.

“We have sufficient reserves at the moment, and according to all the indicators, we are capable of producing all the cereals and oil plants that are used in most basic foodstuffs, as well as animal feed. That is very important,” said Zvjezdana Blazic, an expert for food and farming.

Croatia consumes around 400,000 tons of wheat every year, and according to data from the national chamber of commerce HGK, in 2021 local farmers had 145,000 hectares (360,000 acres) of wheat fields which yielded around 1 million tons of the precious cereal. The surplus wheat mostly gets exported, mainly to neighboring Bosnia and also to Italy.

Jutarnji List also talked to the Belje company, which is a major farming business in eastern Croatia. They too said that there was no reason for concern.

“The fall sowing season was completed according to plan and on time, and for this year’s spring sowing season we have secured all the seed, fertilizer, and other material on time, so there are no delays there,” an unnamed manager at the company told Jutarnji.