The Bank of England governor warned last week of ‘apocalyptic’ food price rises. Yet war in Ukraine, climate change and inflation are already taking their toll all over the world. The cost of living is a problem in Britain. For UN agencies and humanitarian relief workers around the world, the bigger worry is the cost of dying. Sounding the alarm again last week, António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said Ukraine-related shortages could help “tip tens of millions of people over the edge into food insecurity”. The result could be “malnutrition, mass hunger and famine in a crisis that could last for years” – and increase the chances of a global recession. The World Food Programme estimates about 49 million people face emergency levels of hunger. About 811 million go to bed hungry each night. The number of people on the brink of starvation across Africa’s Sahel region, for example, is at least 10 times higher than in pre-Covid 2019. The adverse impact of Russia’s invasion on the availability and price of staples such as wheat, maize, barley and sunflower oil – Ukraine and Russia normally produce about 30% of global wheat exports – has been huge. Ukraine’s wheat production this year is likely to be 35% down and exporting much of it may be impossible due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade. In March, global commodity prices, recorded by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, hit an all-time high. They remain at record-breaking levels. Russia’s war has compounded or accelerated pre-existing food deficits and inflationary trends arising from a host of linked factors: the negative economic impact of the pandemic; resulting supply-chain, employment and transport problems; extreme weather and climate-crisis-related falls in output; spiralling energy costs; and numerous other ongoing conflicts worldwide. Middle-income countries, such as Egypt and Brazil, are exceptionally poorly placed to cope with increased food insecurity, international risk consultants Verisk Maplecroft said in a report last week. Many governments had exhausted their financial and material reserves fighting Covid and incurred large debts. Now the cupboard is bare.

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