DENNIS Voznesenski is already well-known in Australia’s agricultural community for insights which display his skills as an agricultural economist.

Dennis Voznesenski.

His reports, these days for the Commonwealth Bank, and formerly for Rabobank and IKON Commodities, are renowned for being concise and perceptive, and those skills have taken a new turn in Mr Voznesenski’s first book, War and Wheat.

Through the prism of Australia’s wheat-market experiences in World War I and II, and then the Ukraine conflict, it charts the mixed fortunes of seasons and policies in both controlled and free markets.

Researched meticulously through contemporary newspaper articles published during the world wars, and through documentation of the market we watched blow up after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the similarities in the situation experienced in Australia around the war years and in 2022 were uncanny:

In both cases, a record amount of grain was harvested, and it substantially exceeded the capacity of the nation’s logistical system for moving grain from rural areas to ports, and from ports onward to their final destination. In both instances harvests were abundant following horrific droughts where production suffered historic losses. During both periods, there were substantial challenges regarding the availability of shipping, and international freight costs were sky high.

While the Russia-Ukraine war saw global prices leap in response to the throttling of Ukraine’s ability to ship to its regular markets, the impact was well documented as also seeing high input prices, namely for fertiliser.

Mr Voznesenski is not alone in concluding that Australia needs a bigger domestic market to make it less susceptible to the vagaries of international pricing.

He points to a local biofuel industry as having potential to not only create a value-added industry, but decrease reliance on imported fuel, an important factor, even with a road fleet expected to be battery-powered in the next 10-15 years:

That said, it will remain very relevant for the aviation and maritime industries which cannot yet electrify.

Mr Voznesenski advocates for some government support to get the biofuel industry going:

Building a biofuel industry during peace time may seem expensive, but building it during war time is far more expensive, if not impossible. During a war, construction costs would rise exponentially, while accessing skilled labour and equipment needed from overseas to construct the plants would become incredibly difficult. Without local biofuel production we could be risking the entire economy grinding to a halt in the scenario where fossil fuel imports become unavailable.

With an end-date already slated for Australia’s live sheep exports, Mr Voznesenski may be on the money when he paints meat as the ultimate value-add for the grain industry:

Roughly eight to twelve kilograms of grain creates one kilogram of beef. That means that in the scenario where less freight is available, exporting meat would be easier than grain from a tonnage perspective.

War and Wheat, subtitled Managing Markets During Global Conflict, is of interest to anyone keen to look into the history of Australia’s agricultural policies, its relationship with its allies, and its supply chains.

It also gives an insight into the challenges faced by our forebears during the war years, which threw up drought and bumper seasons.

What the book undeniably purveys is how lucky Australia has been to not undergo the food shortages that impacted Europe during World War I and II.

Food inflation figures from 1916 show that Australia’s at 28 percent paled against the UK’s at 47pc, Germany’s at 83pc, and Austria’s at 113pc.

The 1916 commentary also harks to the widely held view common these days in relation to supermarkets that individual sectors, rather than the economy as a whole, are to blame for inflation:

As with most times when food prices rose, grain merchants and meat packers were being put in the spotlight. Across England, protests were prevalent demanding the government take measure to reduce food prices.

Interestingly, Mr Voznesenski’s book also explores the first mentions of Australia’s biofuel industry back in 1917, and France’s move in 1938 to turn surplus wheat into fuel, a move Australia was also considering at the time.

While the price shock of urea prices more than doubling is fresh in the Australian farmer’s mind, Mr Voznesenski’s book points to a similar pain being felt in 1942, when Japan occupied Nauru and Australia lost access to its most important source of superphosphate.

With the US election less than one month away, and Australia treading carefully in its diplomatic relationships with China in particular, this book holds some interesting and timely insights into what can go right and wrong in trade in times of conflict.

Congratulations, Dennis, on a readable and illuminating first book.

It is available through Amazon AU, and the author can be contacted at [email protected]

On a similar note, I can also recommend the nine Baghdad Nights episodes in the Secrets We Keep Listnr podcast series about the AWB’s sales of wheat to Iraq under the oil-for-food program.

Both War and Wheat and Baghdad Nights show that we can never learn enough from history.

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