A report by the British Economist magazine warned of a “next catastrophe” awaiting millions around the world due to the lack of food imports, especially from Russia and Ukraine, which are fighting a war that has disrupted the food supply chain, in a world that is already in a “fragile” situation due to the Corona pandemic and climate change.
The magazine said that the war is leading a “fragile world towards mass hunger,” noting that the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin is affecting the lives of people far from the battlefield, following most of Ukraine’s exports of grain and oilseeds have stopped.
Russia and Ukraine provide 28 percent of the world’s traded wheat, 29 percent of barley, 15 percent of corn, and 75 percent of sunflower oil.
The two countries contribute to supplying Lebanon and Tunisia with half their needs of grain, and two thirds of what Libya and Egypt import.
The war disrupts these supplies because Ukraine has planted mines in its waters to deter any attack, while Russia is blockading the port of Odessa.
The report says that wheat prices rose by 53 percent since the beginning of the year, and jumped by 6 percent on May 16, following India said it would suspend exports due to the heat wave.
With China forecasting a poor wheat harvest this year due to rains, suspension of Indian exports, and a drought in the Horn of Africa, things are expected to get worse.
The report also refers to the restrictions imposed by many countries of the world on food and fertilizer exports.
This situation will have a serious impact on the poor, while governments cannot afford to help them, especially if they import energy, a market that is also in turmoil.
The rising cost of staple foods has already increased the number of people who cannot get enough to eat, by 440 million, to 1.6 billion.
Nearly 250 million people are on the verge of starvation.
If the war continues and supplies from Russia and Ukraine are limited, hundreds of millions of people might fall into poverty, political unrest would spread and children would be stunted.
And Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, had warned a few days ago that the coming months threaten to “the specter of a global food shortage”, which may last for years.
The British charity Oxfam predicted in a report issued on Monday that 263 million people will fall under the extreme poverty line this year.
The Economist report called for the need for countries in the world, including Russia and Ukraine, to unite to mitigate the effects of the food crisis, by helping Ukraine ship its grain via railways and roads to ports, and to end the Black Sea blockade.
She also called for the need to “support” importing countries in order to reduce import expenditures and to impose concessional financing terms.
The report says that these solutions will not be easy, with Russia, which is facing difficulties on the battlefields, seeks to stifle the Ukrainian economy, and Ukraine is reluctant to remove mines, which requires the intervention of the countries of the world to try to persuade them, as well as guarding food convoys through a broad alliance.
