WASHINGTON, Broadcasting News Corporation : The COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather, and geopolitical conflicts have sent shock waves through the global food market, leading to sharp increases in the prices of major crops and causing food shortages in many parts of the world. The United Nations and the World Bank, among other international organizations, have warned of the severe consequences of the global food crisis, noting that the situation is going from bad to worse. Meanwhile, the United States, a major force behind the Russia-Ukraine conflict, is reaping the benefits of the global food crisis, as U.S. agricultural giants see their stocks go up and wealth grow, despite hundreds of millions suffering from food insecurity.
WORSENING FOOD CRISIS
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic reduced incomes and disrupted supply chains, chronic and acute hunger were on the rise due to factors including conflict and climate change, according to the World Bank. The disruption caused by the conflict in Ukraine has added to price pressures, with costs likely to remain high for the foreseeable future and expected to push millions of people into acute food insecurity, the World Bank noted.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has lifted food prices and hit the poorest the hardest, World Bank President David Malpass said in April, warning that the food crisis will last for months and probably into next year. Ukraine and Russia are both major grain exporters, and Russia is also a major fertilizer exporter. The escalating Ukraine crisis and Western sanctions against Russia have led to higher costs of grain, fertilizer and energy, which together resulted in higher food prices. “Because the cost of fertilizers has in some cases quadrupled, many farmers cannot afford them anymore, and that will be affecting the harvest this year and next year,” Maximo Torero, UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s chief economist, said earlier this month. “If the war continues, in 2022 and 2023 we could potentially have a food access problem coupled with a food availability problem, because Ukraine and Russia would significantly reduce their exports, including fertilizers. This is a situation we have to avoid,” said Torero. “While needs are sky-high, resources have hit rock bottom,” the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said in a recent statement, noting that it requires 24 billion U.S. dollars to reach 153 million people in 2022. Since 2019, the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared from 135 million to 345 million, with a total of 50 million people in 45 countries “teetering on the edge of famine,” according to the WFP.
AMERICA TO BLAME
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is without doubt a major contributor to the current global food crisis, and the United States, which poured oil on the flames in the conflict, is to blame. In the Western narrative, the Ukraine crisis is entirely caused by Russia. But analysts pointed out that the situation in Ukraine has evolved to where it is today because the United States has been squeezing Russia’s strategic space to safeguard its own hegemony.
Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, the United States and its allies have imposed rafts of sanctions on Russia, further disrupting the global supply chain that has already been crippled by the pandemic, and leading to a spike in global food and energy prices. In a fact sheet published in July, the U.S. Treasury Department attempted to clarify its sanctions policy on Russia, saying that Russian agricultural and medical products are not targets, while noting that it strongly supports UN efforts to alleviate global food shortages. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, said later in July that the U.S. promises to exempt Russian food supplies from sanctions had not been fulfilled. Russia, a major grain and fertilizer exporter, has been complaining that Western sanctions impeded its exports despite a UN-brokered deal. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also called for unimpeded access of Russian food and fertilizer to the global markets. NEWS COLLECTED FROM XINHUA NEWS.