Global Food Crisis: War, Debt, Shortage, Hunger

According to the IMF and World Bank, the global food crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine is threatening to become a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Africa: Many poor countries have incurred debts during the pandemic – now there is a risk of hunger.

Lenine Mendes, a businessman in the Republic of Cape Verde, is worried: “The prices for all products are worrying, especially for food. We know the international situation,” he says to a reporter’s camera in a pedestrian zone in the island’s capital, Praia. And grumbles: “But producers and retailers often take advantage of this and increase the prices additionally.” A spiral has started.

By February, prices on the archipelago off Africa’s west coast had already increased by seven percent compared to the same month last year, mainly driven by the pandemic. Now comes the war between Ukraine and Russia. It is mainly about food from these countries such as cooking oil and wheat.

However, the price wave has long since spread to other products, including rice, sugar and meat. The residents of the archipelago are calling for the state, for subsidies and price caps for basic commodities. It hits people hard – but in most other African countries the problems are even greater than in the politically stable island kingdom.

“Risk of famine is real”

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recorded the highest food price index for March since it was introduced in 1990. The index indicates global price movements for the most important staple foods. The jump from February, the month when the war began, to March is a whopping twelve percent in just one month.

The World Bank said this week that an average increase of more than 30 percent is possible. It hits the poorest once again – first the pandemic, now the war. If there is no money to survive, savings are made on everything else, such as school fees.

The situation was already dramatic

According to the United Nations, 283 million Africans did not have enough to eat before the conflict. There could be a lot more now. Almost all African countries obtain wheat from the European crisis region, 18 countries even get more than half of their needs. In East Africa it is even 90 percent.

However, after a long period of drought and plagues of locusts, this region in particular is already at the end of its strength. “We estimate that 81 million people in East Africa and the Horn of Africa are already food insecure,” said World Food Program (WFP) East Africa director Michael Dunford. That is an increase of 60 percent compared to June 2021. “The risk of famine is real.”

Ukrainian farmers switch to war economy

Andrei Vaytenko, an agricultural entrepreneur from western Ukraine, knows the situation. “We can no longer export via the Black Sea ports,” he says. You have to look for new trade routes. Vaytenko is now growing more wheat for the time being, but less corn – a kind of conversion to a war economy. But first of all it’s about Ukraine itself, because the country first has to plug its own holes before it can export more again.

Agricultural production has largely collapsed in the Russian-occupied areas in eastern Ukraine. There is a shortage of farm workers in the west because the young rural population is at war. Vaytenko’s mayor, Oleh Volskyj, complains: “We are now looking for those over 60 to drive tractors.”

There is no end to the war in sight, and with it no end to the price spiral. Hopes now rest on good harvests in important wheat exporting countries such as Argentina and Australia. Perhaps that will not be enough to keep poverty and hunger from rising along with prices.

Boost food production – just how?

But the poor countries hardly have any chance of stabilizing prices through subsidies – they simply don’t have the money to do so. They had been encouraged by Western lenders to take on debt in order to mitigate the Corona consequences for their countries. Now interest rates on the money markets are rising – and with the war in Ukraine and the food crisis, new imponderables follow for the state coffers.

World Bank President David Malpass pointed out on the BBC that 60 percent of the poorest countries are already over-indebted. Subsidies or price caps for expensive food are therefore not the solution. Instead, the production of food must be boosted, including through greater use of fertilizers.

But that might not be a solution for everyone: 22 African countries also get their fertilizers from the Black Sea region. The prices for the growth aids have – of course – also skyrocketed. “Countries like Ethiopia or Sudan depend on imports from Ukraine and Russia for up to 90 percent of fertilizers,” says Michael Dunford from the WFP. The situation will continue to deteriorate unless the international community gives more money.