Including Arab countries.. Learn about the countries most affected by the global grain crisis

While the Russian war in Ukraine raised global food prices, it was the developing countries that took the hardest.

In an article published by the American newspaper "washingtonpost" about a week ago, writer Claire Parker said that the price hike caused by Russia's blockade of Ukrainian ports and the cascading effects of Western sanctions on Moscow, raised fears of an imminent grain shortage, and rising hunger around the world.

The writer explained that both Ukraine and Russia produce about a third of the wheat traded in world markets, and about a quarter of the world's barley, and exports from the two countries - which also include sunflower oil and corn to feed livestock - constitute about 12% of the total calories traded in the world.

The writer shows that US and European officials accused Russia of using food as a tool for war, and called for the reopening of Ukrainian ports;

The crisis comes at a time when climate disasters, conflicts and economic stresses from the pandemic are already exacerbating hunger in many countries, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, and the war in Ukraine could increase the number of people facing acute food insecurity by 47 million this year. , according to the United Nations.

Some countries are already starting to feel the effects of the grain crisis, and these are the five countries that are starting to feel it:

Nigeria

Nigeria is highly dependent on imported grain;

Wheat makes up a large part of its diet, but only 1% of the wheat consumed annually is produced locally.

About 43% of Nigerians live below the poverty line, and malnutrition and food insecurity have stunted the growth of more than a third of children under the age of 5, according to 2018 government statistics.

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated other factors fueling hunger in Nigeria, including the insurgency in the country's northeast and the forecast of below-average rains in the central belt and southern regions.

Nigeria was among the few countries ranked at the highest risk in the latest UN report, and this year the number of people in Nigeria classified as “emergency” by the international food insecurity classification system is expected to reach nearly 1.2 million between June current and next August.

The writer quoted Macky Sall, the Senegalese president and head of the African Union, as saying - before his trip to Russia this June to search for a solution to the crisis - that "Africa has no power in the face of production chains or logistics, and it is completely at the mercy of the current situation."

Somalia and Ethiopia

Somalia and Ethiopia, located in the Horn of Africa, are dealing with a deadly crisis intertwined with climate change, conflict and rising food prices;

The two countries are going through the worst drought in 4 decades;

This could push up to 20 million people in the region to go hungry by the end of the year.

According to the writer;

Because of "extreme weather conditions", countries in the Horn of Africa have needed to import more food than usual this year, but Somalia depends on Russia and Ukraine for more than 90% of its wheat imports, said David Laborde, a senior researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

The writer noted that local conflicts add crisis to the complexity of access to food;

In Somalia and Ethiopia, fighting between governments and militants is causing displacement, more than 9 million people have needed food aid because of the war, and hundreds of thousands have been on the brink of starvation during some periods.

Aid groups have reported "massive shortages" of bread and oil in Ethiopia this spring due to the war, and Somalia and Ethiopia also fall under the "UN High Alert Category".

According to expectations, more than 80,000 people in Somalia may face these conditions this year.

Children are already dying of malnutrition, and nearly 2 million across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are in urgent need of treatment.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned;

Noting that the conflict in Ukraine is hampering its ability to respond, he stated that the cost of therapeutic food used by the Fund to treat severely malnourished children is expected to rise by 16% globally over the next six months.

Egypt

Corinne Fleischer, the regional director of the World Food Program, told the Washington Post that the Middle East and North Africa region is significantly affected by conflict due to its proximity to the Black Sea;

The epidemic caused a 25% increase in hunger in the region.

 "We expect another increase of 10% to 12%, because people at risk are now paying higher prices, and this will make them dependent on receiving food aid," she added, explaining that supply problems and higher food prices could be "the straw that breaks the camel's back."

Egypt is the largest importer of wheat in the world;

Since Russia and Ukraine together supplied more than 80% of the country's imports of wheat before the war, the damage of supply disruption was immediate;

Where the traditional "baladi" flatbread is the backbone of the Egyptian diet, the government subsidizes bread for more than 70 million of Egypt's 102 million people.

According to Laborde, famine is not a concern in Egypt, instead;

Concerns center around the cost to the government “to maintain social safety net programs and avoid some form of political instability”;

High food prices were among the economic problems that contributed to the outbreak of the 2011 Arab Spring, and the price increases that affected bread and other commodities in Egypt in the 1970s sparked riots that prompted the government to reverse course quickly;

While Fleischer says, "Conflict fuels hunger, and hunger fuels conflict."

The writer explains that to stave off discontent;

The government searched for new suppliers of wheat, ordered Egyptian farmers to harvest their wheat ahead of schedule, and sought money from Saudi Arabia and the International Monetary Fund to help finance bread subsidies.

Although she kept supporting bread;

But it stressed "eligibility conditions" to limit spending, and it also placed limits on the price sellers could charge for unsubsidized baladi bread, with the result being that bread sellers bear the brunt of rising global wheat prices.

To whom

The World Food Program was already feeding 13 million people in Yemen;

where a long civil war drove up food and fuel prices and caused protracted famine;

The program usually buys half of the wheat for its global food aid from Ukraine, so the cost of the aid has risen at a time when more people around the world need it, leaving the program with a large budget deficit, and forcing it to announce that it will suspend part of its food aid in South Sudan after it ran out. financing.

WFP already had to cut food rations for 8 million people in Yemen before Russia started its war on Ukraine, and the agency fears it will have to cut more.

The writer concluded by noting that as part of the Ukraine aid bill that lawmakers passed last May, the United States allocated $5 billion to address global food shortages caused by the war;

However, for some people in famine-prone countries mired in conflict, the effects of the war in Ukraine could determine the fate between life and death.