Will the health crisis cause world famine?

The economic crisis associated with protectionist measures and environmental disasters could cause an even worse massacre than the coronavirus, warn several experts. Here's why the threat is brewing.

" We are atdawn of a pandemic hunger "Said David Beasley, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, on April 26. While the pandemic of coronavirus seems to be marking time in most countries in the world, famine is the other bomb that is about to explode.

On April 20, the Food and Food Organization of the United NationsAgriculture ((FAO) raised a review already worrying for 2019, with more than 135 million people facing "serious and acute" food insecurity, more than half of whom live in Africa. A figure expected to double by the end of 2023 due to the coronavirus crisis.

A permanent loss of production capacity

In rural areas, peasants have very little means of absorbing the shock of the recession caused by the shutdown of the economy. " If (the vulnerable) fall ill or are limited in their movements or activities, they will not be able to visit their land to work, take care of their animals, go fishing or access markets to sell their products, buy food, get seeds or even equipment, Explain Dominique Burgeon, Director, FAO Emergency and Rehabilitation Division. They may be forced to sell their animals or eat all their seeds instead of keeping some of them to be able to replant them later. Once you pass this milestone, it is then very difficult to become independent again. "

An interesting thing I noticed in today's Briefing in @TheEconomist is that Nam's food import dependency rate has declined. I think it's probably tied to the govt's policy of forcing retailers to source food locally where they can before they're allowed to import. pic.twitter.com/eMqULRwbSP

– headward, free now to rise (@aboyhasaname) May 8, 2020

The countries most dependent on their food. © The Economist, Twitter

The rise of protectionism

Rice exchange every year, soy, But and corn feed 2.8 billion people worldwide. But, faced with health and economic insecurity, the protectionist temptation comes back at a gallop. In March, Kazakhstan, 8e world producer of wheat, has decided to ban exports, imitated by Russia and Vietnam, which suspended its rice shipments for several weeks. Measures that deprive dependent countries of food essential to their survival and drive up prices, thereby increasing their difficulty in obtaining supplies. " During the financial crisis of 2008-2011, governments decreed 85 export restrictions on food. Studies have shown that these decisions have increased world prices by an additional 13% on average and even 45% for rice "Notes the world Bank.

Huge amounts of food thrown in the trash

" Today, we have no production problem but a problem of access to food "Summarizes Martin Cole, agricultural specialist at the University of Adelaide (Australia) on the site New Scientist. World rice and wheat crops are paradoxically at an historic level and the United States, the leading meat exporter, has seen its pig herd reach a record. Except that with the breakdown of supply chains and the strangulation of road traffic, this overproduction is simply thrown in the trash rather than consumed. In the United States, 10,000 to 14,000 tonnes of milk are thrown away daily. In Nigeria, the closure of shops and restaurants has led producers to destroy thousands of eggs and in Europe, potatoes rotting in the fields.

In an already fragile dairy industry, we are taking another hit as COVID-19 disrupts the food chain

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This week we got the call to start dumping milk because processing plants are full & there is no place for it to go due to the closure of restaurants, schools, and food services pic.twitter.com/bt4lm1VYwt

– Nikki Boxler (@NikkiBoxler) April 5, 2020

Faced with the lack of outlets, milk producers throw away thousands of liters of milk. © Nikki Boxler, Twitter

All of this is compounded by cyclical disasters. East Africa faces a invasion of locusts never seen in 30 years, when the region already has 20 million people in a state of food crisis. Poland and Central Europe are preparing for " one of the worst droughts for over 100 years ", Reports the site The Central European Courier.

Confinement, closing of borders, constitution of security stocks … These are all measures adopted urgently by governments and which risk triggering an even higher death toll than the virus himself.

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