Ramadan tables.. devoid of sunflower oils

The Ukrainian crisis pushes global prices to rise
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The cost of ingredients keeps some dishes off the Ramadan table
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The price hike affects the most affected groups in the region
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French fries were a staple on the Lebanese table, Mona Al-Amsha, in recent years, but with the rise in sunflower oil prices due to Russian-Ukrainian tensions, she fears that not even potatoes will be available during the month of Ramadan.
“In 2021, when prices were really high, I used the same oil to cook several dishes,” said Mona, who lived with her three children in a poor neighborhood in the capital, Beirut. Now I can no longer even do that.” In Lebanon, the impact of higher prices for wheat, edible oil and fuel will be deeper during Ramadan, according to the World Food Program (WFP), after a deep economic crisis has caused prices to rise 11 times since 2019.
Many meals require large amounts of oil, which has become too expensive for many in Lebanon and other Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa that depend heavily on food imports.
Ukraine and Russia provide more than 80 percent of global sunflower oil exports, and its prices jumped 64 percent in one week at the end of March.
Last month, when the Russian tension with Ukraine began, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said its vegetable oil index jumped 8.5% to a record level.
In Lebanon, the price of a bottle of sunflower oil has increased by about ten times what it was three years ago. And due to the scarcity of imports, stores limited one bottle to each buyer.
“I can’t even make a plate of french fries for my kids,” Mona Al-Amsha told the Thomson Archyde.com Foundation by phone.
Fasting without breakfast
High prices severely affect refugees and other affected groups in the region.
According to the World Food Program, nearly 90% of the 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon are already living in extreme poverty and dependent on food aid.
He is also concerned about the Syrian refugees in Egypt, who number about 130,000, amid a population of more than 100 million people. Egypt is usually the world’s largest importer of wheat and has been hit by a sharp rise in global wheat prices due to the war in Ukraine.
“We will not hold out,” said Syrian refugee Maisa Muhammad, 47, adding that she fears the price hike will continue if the war continues.
The rise in food prices also affects charities, which usually intensify assistance to poor families during Ramadan.
“Because of the high prices, the contents of the Ramadan bag, which includes oil, rice, pasta and other food products that cover people’s needs throughout the month, have become less in quantities,” said Hosna Medhat, an Egyptian volunteer in the field of charitable aid. She added that the cost of a Ramadan bag now costs any charity 250 pounds, after it was 150 last year.
The number of donors is also likely to decrease, given the 15 percent devaluation of the local currency in the few weeks leading up to Ramadan.
In Lebanon, charities are already facing pressure. “The demand is much greater than what we have,” said Rasha Baydoun, who heads the charity (Make Difference), which distributes basic commodities to poor families in Lebanon. She added that families who were able to buy edible oil, which was affordable at one time, are now asking to add it to food grants, but their association is finding it difficult to provide sufficient supplies.
“In Ramadan… some families will fast without breaking the fast,” she said. “They have nothing to eat… neither after sunset nor before it.” (Archyde.com)