Global leaders and the world’s elite gathered at Davos in Switzerland this week for the World Economic Forum to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the day.

Among them, the executive director of the UN World Food Programme, David Beasley, delivered a stark warning to the international community.

The current food crisis is going to impact everybody. He asserted that over the next 10-12 months, what is now a significant food pricing problem will become a food availability problem.

As a result of fertiliser shortages, drought and other issues, there will be a lack of production across North America, South America, Ukraine, Africia and Asia.

Escalating food, fuel and shipping costs are devastating to global food security, according to Beasley, whose organisation he described as now taking from the hungry to give to the starving.

Hungers breeds destabilisation

Looking back to the food crisis of 2007-2008, 40 nations experienced political unrest, riots and protests.

According to Beasley, todays conditions are worse. In 2017, 80m people were heading towards starvation globally.

This increased to 276m during the pandemic and Beasley now put the figure at 320m, 49m of whom are coming close to famine in 43 countries. The result will be destabilisation if the global community does not get ahead of this.

Appealing to world leaders, Beasley said that in a world of 7bn people, we are currently struggling to feed everyone - imagine what’s going to happen when we have 10b and 12bn people and the impact of climate change continues to get worse.

The longest breadline in the world

Before Russia’s war in Ukraine, we were facing a humanitarian crisis, according to Beasley. Failure to open up the ports in Ukraine is a declaration of war on global food security, in his view.

Opening the ports won’t solve the problem, but it creates stability in a volatile food market. He stressed the importance of getting Ukrainian fields operational and silos full again, which can’t happen until the ports are open.

Comment

The world continues to pile pressure on Russia to release Ukrainian grain stocks and remove the blockade of ports.

However, as the food crises deepens, it seems likely that western sanctions will come under increasing pressure.

In reality, it’s not just the loss of Ukrainian grain that is starving the world, it’s also the loss of Russian grain and fertiliser.

As the current crisis deepens and its impact widens, Russia may increasingly be seen as the key to unlocking short-term solutions.

Medium to long-term, the push to reduce fertiliser and input use can only grow, if not for climate or economic reasons, then certainly for geopolitical reasons.

In Europe, the cost of adequately funding the farm to fork strategy, in addition to the current CAP, pales significantly in comparison to the future costs that will amount food crises and civil unrest. The catalyst for transformation in European agriculture has never been greater and adequate funding could ignite the flame.