The US hopes India will lift its prohibition on wheat exports, according to the country's senior UN diplomat, who warned that the move would exacerbate global wheat shortages.
"We're pushing nations not to restrict exports because we believe that any restrictions on exports will worsen food shortages," Linda Thomas-Greenfield said ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on food security.India's minister of state for external affairs, Vellamvelly Muraleedharan, will speak at the UN meeting, which will be headed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In the United Nations Security Council, India maintains a non-permanent seat.
"We hope (India) would change its position when they hear the concerns made by other countries," Thomas-Greenfield added.
In the face of plummeting production driven mostly by an intense heatwave, India, the world's second-largest producer of wheat, decided on Saturday that exports without special government authorization would be banned.
New Delhi claimed it wants to maintain "food security" for India's 1.4 billion people, despite earlier promising to sell wheat to nations who were previously reliant on Ukrainian supplies.
Blinken is hosting another UN summit, this time on food security, on Wednesday.
According to Thomas-Greenfield, the purpose of the meeting is to "get countries together to look at what countries might be able to help fill the gap" in wheat supplies caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
She noted that the discussions would identify "countries that require assistance from countries that can fill the gap."
She added that conversations with American farmers were already ongoing on the subject, and that the United States may be included in these countries.
In the aftermath of India's decision, wheat prices in Europe reached new highs on Monday.
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