NK Prasanna & SK Varshney
18th April 2022: We are not yet fully out of Covid, which has impacted global economies to a large extent and there is a military conflict in Europe. This would further impact price indices of food and cooking oils which have been rising in recent times and cause increasing concern.
As a result, people of most of the south-south countries, West Asia, and Africa in particular are nowadays experiencing the worst food crisis and suffering from hunger, malnutrition and severe food insecurity, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Friday 15th, April 2022. Compared to February, the FAO food price index rose by 12.9% in March 2022. The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) was introduced in 1996 as a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a market basket of food commodities. The record gain index never grew so much.
Russia and Ukraine are the world’s top wheat exporters with a share of 20 % and 30% of the world’s wheat. The FAO says the military conflict and war in Ukraine has halted exports and pushed up food grain prices which lead to the humanitarian crisis. With increasing drought intensity in the USA and China, has hurt food production leaving Russia and Ukraine unable to make up the export deficit. In addition, rising prices of fuel and fertilizers have led to disruption in supply chains, reduced crop yields, and nutritional quality.
In the Sahel region of central and western Africa, 60 million people are malnourished. In Nigeria people are grappling with lack of food security, suffering from acute hunger, and not having access to food.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has asked the world community for $ 77.7 billion to provide food for 2.2 million people in Sahel and Nigeria for the next six months. These regions are facing an atrocious, food crisis, and instability so immediate assistance to these countries is the need of the hour to tackle this global emergency.
References:
https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
(Dr N.K. Prasanna ([email protected])is a Scientist at CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (CSIR-NIScPR), New Delhi. Dr S K. Varshney ([email protected]) is Head, International Cooperation, Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi)
