Displaced women and children gather a displacment camp in Baidoa, Somalia where a catastrophic food crisis is looming.
Global Food Catastrophe Looms Grace Fors
T
he world is approaching an unprecedented food crisis that will put the lives of millions of people at risk. This comes on top of, and is compounded by, myriad other crises created by capitalism including climate change, supply chain dysfunction, pandemic stress, and soaring prices. But while all of this poured lighter fluid on the world’s food systems, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine set it ablaze. The unprecedented public health crisis that the food shortage will soon present is a symptom of the new era of global disorder characterized by deglobalization. If recent years have shown us anything, it’s that the world economy is a Jenga tower constantly on the brink of collapse from new developments. When it hits such a basic necessity as food, it can only further feed into the cycle of volatility, conflict, and destabilization. The only way out is through the socialist transformation of society.
Fuel to the Fire
Food security has been on a downward spiral for many years, with climate change-induced droughts, floods, fires, cyclones, and hailstorms a key driving factor. Food production all over the world has been relentlessly jeopardized by damaged ecosystems, diminishing crop yields, unstable temperatures, and too much or too little rain. The Horn of Africa is currently seeing its worst drought in 40 years, heat waves have compromised India’s wheat harvest leading to a ban on wheat exports, and floods battering South Asia have utterly
destroyed crops and farmland. La Niña-induced droughts have been devastating agricultural activity in a number of countries throughout Africa and Asia, among them Afghanistan which was just hit with a major earthquake. According to the latest UN report, in 2021 an estimated 29.3% of the global population — 2.3 billion people — were moderately or severely food insecure, and 11.7% (923.7 million people) faced severe food insecurity. World Food Program director David Beasley, points to the even more shocking number who are “marching toward starvation” which shot up from 80 million to 276 million over the past several years. As a result of the war, it has increased again and stands at an estimated 323 million. Beasley further warns that 49 million people in 43 countries are “knocking on famine’s door.” Famine is defined by the UN as an extreme deprivation of food where “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition are or will likely be evident.” Extreme food insecurity and malnutrition has been concentrated in places like northeastern Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen, but its scope will only grow as the course of events points toward major wheat importers across Africa and the Middle East paying dearly for the war’s impact on the price and supply of traded grains. The UN suggests that South Sudan, engulfed in ongoing conflict and extreme weather, is headed toward the “worst hunger crisis ever.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the situation in Somalia has hit devastating new highs. “The young victims of an intensifying global food crisis are being buried in unmarked graves. In crowded malnutrition wards, families are
