Billions Of People Severely Or Moderately Hungry In 2021

The Head of the food agency of the UN has warned that the need for food has increased due to the war in Ukraine as billions of people suffer hunger.

Highlights

Recently the head of the food agency of the UN warned about the scarcity of food.
The need for food has increased since the war in Ukraine started.
This is leading the world to famine.
3.2 billion people have been severely hungry in the past year.

The head of the UN food agency has warned that a famine is coming in the near future. As the war between Ukraine and Russia is still going strong, the need for food, fuel, and fertilizer has also increased, which can potentially lead to famine. Billions of people need food and necessities. The spike in the price of food and necessities can also be a factor.

This famine can bring global destabilization, mass migration, and starvation on an unexpected scale.

The head of the UN World Food Program, David Beasley has said that the latest analysis shows the record of 345 million hungry people going to the brink of starvation. There was a 25% increase from the start of 2022 before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. The number was 135 million before the pandemic happened in 2020.

David further said that there is a real danger that it will be more in the months ahead. Even sadder is that this group is broken down, there is a shocking 50 million people in 45 countries who are just a step from famine. Beasley has spoken at the UN meeting for the release of the latest report about global hunger by the World Food Program and four other UN agencies. They paint a grim picture.

The report says world hunger rose in 2021, with around 2.3 billion people having difficulty finding enough to eat. The number of people facing severe food insecurity is almost 924 million.

The need of billions of people

The war between Russia and Ukraine had a great impact on the number. Ukraine and Russia alone were the third of the world’s wheat and barley exporters and half of the sunflower oil. Russia and its ally Belarus are the world’s no 2 and 3 producers of potash, a main ingredient of fertilizer.

Beasley has called for an urgent political solution that would allow Ukrainian wheat and grain back to the global market. He also said that had they handled this issue in the past, the war would not have had such a disastrous impact on the world today.

The secretary general of the UN has come up with a package that would enable Ukraine to resume exporting commodities and Russia to ship grain and fertilizers back to the global markets.

The 2021 statistics have made clear that the world is going backward in its efforts to end hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity in all its forms. The report by the world food program says hunger was raised last year in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. However, it is at a lower pace from 2019 to 2020. tronweekly.com

The gender gap in food insecurity has grown since the pandemic. The report says that it is wide in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as in Asia. 31.9% of women are severely food insecure as compared to 27.6% of men in 2021. 22% of children under the age of 5 have stunted growth and development. 6.7% suffer from the deadliest form of malnutrition. 5.7% of youngsters under 5 were overweight.

The solution for the crisis

The five agency chiefs have said that the intense situation of the climate crisis, conflict, and pandemic combined with the inequalities require major action to cope with the future shock.

The director-general of the food and agricultural organization has called for all countries to expand the production of food, strengthen supply chains and provide cash and critical items needed for the production of the necessities and to protect livestock.

He also said that we are at a major risk of facing a food access crisis now, and potentially a food availability crisis for the next season. We must prevent the proceeding of acute food insecurity trends in the months and years to come.

It is necessary to find a strong and permanent measure to solve or lessen the situation. Billions of people are fighting hunger every day which we should try to eradicate.