In an AL-Monitor Pro report (partial paywall), Ali Metwally has little but ill to speak of the future:
A global food crisis is well underway and, according to World Food Program chief David Beasley, it will be “beyond anything we’ve seen in our lifetime.” The situation is all the more alarming for countries that have traditionally depended on imports of key staple foods to meet their needs. This goes for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where food accounts for 13% of the region’s total imports, compared to 9% in the European Union (EU), 8% in Latin America and 7% in North America.
Long in the making, the situation has more recently been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted global supply chains and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war that began earlier this year and which has further polarized and politicized the matter. Combined, these countries make up around a third of global wheat exports — a key food staple in most MENA countries — and are responsible for 32% of MENA’s wheat imports.
With food export bans now in place in many countries, rising shipping costs and a widening supply-demand gap, the crisis, if not adequately and urgently addressed, could see shortages of essential food items grow to levels that lead to a notable increase in hunger and malnutrition rates across the world.
I’ve been wondering if the tendency of Western food exports to disturb the fundamental economies of their customers is a disaster waiting to happen. That is, cheap Western food puts local farmers out of business. Then food gets cutoff by an event such as the Covid crisis, or something worse. With the local farming economy in ruins, or worse – think the Aral Sea debacle – is it going to end in mass starvation?
Immense profits do not justify mass starvation, at least not in my book.
