The Next Global Food Crisis Is Coming
Al-Ittihad, UAE, May 19
The United Nations World Food Program has issued emergency warnings that 14 countries, mainly located in Africa and the Middle East, will face famine conditions if immediate measures aren’t taken to provide them with food supplies in the coming months. Indeed, the world is facing a food crisis that will affect all countries by limiting access to food, or by raising the cost of food to unprecedentedly high levels. The reasons for this are many. Years of drought, as a result of climate change, have destroyed crops in many countries. Similarly, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and supply chain problems, have caused delays and increased shipping costs. More recently, the shortage in foodstuff has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which has halted basic food exports from Black Sea ports. If immediate action is not taken by the international community to deal with this crisis, millions of people will suffer from hunger in the coming months. Therefore, long-term plans are needed to mitigate the effects of climate change and adopt more effective ways to increase yields and maintain fresh water supplies. These schemes should become a priority, but the most important immediate remedy is to find ways to allow Russia and Ukraine to export their food products. These two countries produce many of the main agricultural crops exported to the rest of the world. Russia accounts for 16% of the world’s wheat supply and 29% of sunflower oil, and is the largest exporter of fertilizers. Meanwhile, Ukraine provides 48% of all sunflower oil, 10% of all wheat, and 14% of all corn sold in the world. All these essential supplies are no longer reaching their end markets. Ukraine now has warehouses filled with agricultural products that cannot be shipped. Thus, if an agreement isn’t reached allowing Black Sea ports to be used for shipping food exports, the products will remain in their warehouses, where they will eventually spoil and become unfit for consumption. It is therefore in the interest of the whole world to bring an end to this crisis. So far, many countries in the southern hemisphere have argued that the war in Ukraine is primarily a Western crisis and does not directly affect their national security interests. However, as the statistics and geography of the food crisis show, the most vulnerable countries are those in the south. There is no doubt that the conditions of famine are a recipe for political turmoil and mass migration, which pose many security challenges that will require immediate attention. Because some of the most influential countries of the south have maintained good relations with Russia, they have the capacity to reach a compromise that includes agreement on rules and protocols for the safe passage of food exports from the Black Sea. The best implementation of this initiative will undoubtedly require careful preparation, but the truth is that if these efforts are not made in the coming weeks, the likelihood of famine will become very real. There is no doubt that the World Food Program and other relief organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, in close cooperation with important countries from the south, can talk to Russia and Ukraine on this matter. In fact, this may give Moscow in particular the opportunity to benefit from a humanitarian initiative that, if applied properly, will not change the rules of conflict. —Geoffrey Kemp (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)
