Experts agree that this problem did not arise today.
The world has been in a food crisis for a long time. In 2015, there were about 670 million hungry people in the world.
It was then that the United Nations set the goal of eliminating hunger and achieving food security by 2030.
The coronavirus pandemic has significantly increased the number of hungry people in the world in 2021, to 828 million people (46 million more than in 2020 and 150 million more than in 2019).
According to mathematical calculations, while maintaining the current dynamics, by 2030 the same 670 million people will go hungry.
In addition, according to statistics, in 2021, 2.3 billion people (which is 29% of the world’s population) faced the problem of moderate or severe food insecurity.
And 11% of the world’s population experienced severe food insecurity.
Of course, today’s food crisis has its own characteristics: first of all, it is the growing gap between hungry men and women. In 2020, it was 3%, in 2021 -5% (not in favor of women).
And the so-called nutrition, complete in terms of the ratio of fats, proteins and carbohydrates, is not economically available for 40% of the world’s population.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has identified 50 countries as the most in need of external food assistance.
These are 33 countries in Africa, 10 in Asia, 2 in Latin America, 1 in Europe. Sri Lanka and Ukraine joined these countries in the latest FAO review.
If we talk about the global causes of the food crisis and hunger, then for many years they have been in 3 groups.
First (most important) — armed conflicts.
Second — the negative effects of climate change (natural disasters, etc.).
Third — the impact of economic changes (energy prices, financial markets, etc.).
In 2020, armed conflicts in Ethiopia, South Sudan and Yemen pushed 139 million people to the brink of starvation (an increase of 40 million compared to 2020).
In 2021, economic shocks were the main cause of hunger in 21 countries (number of hungry 30 million people).
Climate change has caused 23.5 million people to go hungry, primarily in 8 countries in Africa.
If we analyze from different sources the situation with harvesting in Ukraine and Russia, which generally supply grain for export to 55 countries, then the shortage of Ukrainian grain may be 20-30%, while in Russia an increase of 6% is expected compared to the average annual figure. for 5 years.
The main task of the UN and FAO is to provide access to the food market for both Ukrainian and Russian grain (which, although not under direct sanctions, but, given financial sanctions, bans on Russian ships from entering European ports, difficulties with the passage of payments, etc., is also under sanctions pressure).
The food crisis of 2022 is multifactorial, and most of the solutions undoubtedly lie in the political arena.
