Thank you for your question, Mr. Turnbull.
Most definitely they do. As I mentioned, and I'll expand upon on it, even if the war ended tomorrow and the pandemic ended tomorrow, we'd still be in a food crisis. The war in Ukraine, to build on what a previous witness said, exacerbated existing problems. The reason the price fluctuated at first, when the war happened, wasn't necessarily a supply and demand issue. The problem was commodity markets.
Commodity markets are unregulated. They're really influenced by the U.S. commodity market in Chicago. Ever since 2000, because they've been deregulated, it allows for speculation. The price fluctuation of the price of grain isn't necessarily reflecting supply and demand; it's reflecting the fear and panic of speculators. The market isn't working properly, and what the international markets are doing is amplifying the problem.
The WTO, the World Trade Organization, is at a standstill. For 25 years, they've been stuck on negotiating over the Agreement on Agriculture. The consensus is that the Agreement on Agriculture is outdated, but there's no consensus on how to move forward. That's one of the structural problems.
Finally, the food system generates about one-third of greenhouse gases. The United Nations held a food systems summit last year, in 2021, and the global consensus is that everybody needs to transform their food system. There's disagreement on how and in what direction, and that was my suggestion on agroecology. It will take a lot of work, but we have to start now.
Thank you.