UN chief Antonio Guterres warns of risk of multiple famines in 2022

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the world is facing the real risk of multiple famines this year. In video message to the Uniting for Global Food Security ministerial conference in Berlin, he said, 2023 could be even worse because of the growing shortage of food around the globe. UN Secretary-General said the war in Ukraine has added to the disruptions caused by climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and inequality to produce an unprecedented global hunger crisis already affecting hundreds of millions of people.
Guterres said, all harvests will be hit, including rice and corn affecting billions of people across Asia, Africa and the Americas and this year’s food access issues could become next year’s global food shortage. He warned that no country would be immune to the social and economic fallout. Guterres said UN negotiators are working on a deal that would enable Ukraine to export food, and let Russia bring food and fertilizer to world markets without restrictions. He called for the release of Ukrainian agricultural products onto the world market to ease shortages as well as debt relief for poorer countries. Russia and Ukraine together produce around 29% of the world's wheat exports. "The war in Ukraine has compounded problems that have been brewing for years: climate disruption; the COVID-19 pandemic; the deeply unequal recovery," he said.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who was hosting the Berlin meeting, disputed claims from Moscow that the western sanctions against Russia are to blame for the food security crisis. She said such an argument was "completely untenable" since Russian exports of wheat in May and June this year were at the same level as in 2021. Baerbock echoed Guterres in pointing to the many causes of the food crisis, but said that "it was Russia's war of attack against Ukraine that turned a wave into a tsunami."