Food Crises and Global Repercussions
An-Nahar, Lebanon, April 22
Last year, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN issued a publication titled “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World in 2021.” The report ranked the most food-vulnerable countries in the world, highlighting countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Honduras, and Syria. Globally, more than 800 million people go to bed hungry, a figure constituting about 10% of the world’s population. There are many reasons behind these numbers. They include prolonged droughts exacerbated by global warming, mismanagement of resources, internal and external conflicts, and the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020. The pandemic has disrupted international supply chains and markets, increasing inflationary pressures. This has caused the price of basic food supplies to rise. On February 24, 2022, the war in Ukraine suddenly put vital food exports from Russia and Ukraine – two of the world’s most important producers of wheat, barley, corn, and sunflower oil – at risk of being interrupted. So far, the war has shown no sign of coming to an end, and no new crops have been planted. No matter what happens on the battlefield, the shortage of these basic food commodities will continue for a long time. Both Ukraine and Russia will need to stockpile many products and crops for their own consumption internally, because both countries, for various reasons, are becoming more and more isolated from international markets. The head of the United Nations World Food Program, David Beasley, said this war will have a global impact beyond anything we’ve seen since World War II. Among the frightening statistics that Beasley cited was the fact that Egypt and Lebanon get 85% and 81% of their crops, respectively, from Ukraine. In 1977, bread riots in Egypt killed more than 70 people and injured hundreds, a strong signal to the leadership that efforts to reduce government subsidies for bread were a red line not to be crossed. Throughout history, food shortages have led to political unrest and to the overthrow of governments. The most famous case was the French Revolution of 1789. Fifteen years before that, in April and May 1775, a grain shortage and the subsequent rise in the price of bread led to some 300 riots in the areas surrounding Paris. The situation worsened in the following years due to the rise in population and failure to plant new crops, peaking in crop failures in 1788 and 1789. The cost of bread rose to nearly 90% of the worker’s wages. These factors were among the main reasons for the uprising of July 14, 1789, and the storming of the castle and the Bastille prison in Paris, which was a symbol of the monarchy. The current food crisis is global in scope and will have political repercussions in almost every country. High inflation and its impact on food prices are among the most serious challenges facing the leaders of many countries in the world. Other events, including the massive economic shutdown in China to contain the latest wave of the coronavirus outbreak, may trigger a global recession. One result may be lower prices for fossil fuels as demand slows down. This may pose more problems for Russia, which is already under sanctions but may provide relief to major consumers of fossil fuels, especially in Europe, where governments are under great pressure to diversify energy import sources. Unless more serious and determined measures are taken to end the war and allow economic production to resume, the consequences could lead to the disintegration of the post-World War II rules-based order. This would mean a return to the power politics of the nineteenth and early 20th centuries, or at worst, to international anarchy. —Geoffrey Kemp (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)
