FSP Blog

Much of the early attention on the Russian-Ukraine conflict’s food security impacts has been concentrated on countries highly dependent on wheat imports from the Black Sea region. Given the important role that wheat products play in the diets of people in Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Lebanon, and other countries, the interruption in Black Sea wheat trade and high prices have raised serious concerns about rising levels of food insecurity, poverty, and instability around the world.

The current rise in global market prices for major food commodities almost mirrors that of the 2008 food crisis, presenting a worldwide threat to food security. The situation is particularly severe in Africa, where the COVID-19 pandemic and now the Russia-Ukraine crisis have exposed the vulnerability of food systems to major shocks, particularly in countries like Nigeria that rely heavily on imports of major staple foods such as rice and wheat.

In 2021, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sounded the alarm on a looming crisis: Climate change is generating a “code red for humanity” that requires urgent action. Food systems are deeply entwined with this crisis. In many regions, especially in the developing world, climate change has already started to reduce agricultural productivity and disrupt supply chains, putting pressure on livelihoods and threatening to significantly increase hunger and malnutrition, making adaptation efforts crucially important.

With the war in Ukraine continuing to disrupt global food markets and contribute to rising and volatile food prices, international policymakers are calling for coordination and humanitarian aid to prevent the situation from escalating into further food crisis. 

In many places around the world, hunger is worse than ever before.

That’s the message of the 2022 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), released this week. The report paints a grim picture of global food security. Almost 193 million people across 53 countries/territories were acutely food insecure in 2021, up nearly 40 million people from 2020. This number represents a new record and is only expected to worsen throughout 2022.