2022–2023 global food crises
These include supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021–2023 global energy crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and floods and heatwaves during 2021 (which destroyed key American and European crops).
[32] There have also been riots and other forms of unrest due to food prices rising in Albania,[15] Kenya,[16] Indonesia,[33] Peru,[17] Ecuador,[34] Panama,[35] Argentina,[36] Tunisia, and Lebanon.
[38] In February, the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF had already projected nutrition and hunger gaps for thirteen million people in East Africa.
[40] In May 2022, ongoing protests in Iran escalated into nationwide civil unrest[41] as a result of government price hikes on staple foods including bread and pasta.
Workers' protests had increased over the past year as the result of a deterioration in living conditions caused by the re-imposition of US sanctions against Iran during the administration of Donald Trump and the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
[53][54] Oxfam, ALIMA and Save the Children warned that the food crises in West Africa could affect 27 million people, especially in Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mali, and Nigeria.
[55] During a May 2022 visit to Nigeria, the Secretary-General of the United Nations said the war in Ukraine has made the food, energy, and economic crises worse in Africa as a whole.
[57][58] The U.N. Development Program said rising food and energy prices caused by COVID-19 and the Russian war in Ukraine hit Sub-Saharan Africa hardest.
[62] By May 2022, wheat prices in Tunisia had risen to over $430 per tonne, more than double the cost from 2021 due to supply interruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
[72] According to the UN, $4.4bn is needed to pay for increased food costs,[73] with human rights experts calling on the US to unblock assets of the Afghan central bank to ease humanitarian crisis.
[83] The immediate causes of the floods were heavier than usual monsoon rains and melting glaciers[84] that followed a severe heat wave, both of which are linked to climate change.
[85] As Indonesia is the largest producer of palm oil, and with a harvest decline in the second largest producer and neighbor Malaysia, the ban has caused severe global supply chain disruptions and further exacerbated the price increases caused by the loss of Russian and Ukrainian oil exports and failures of soy crops in South America.
[86] Sri Lanka was much more harshly affected by the food crisis as it was already facing mass man-made crop failures due to a total ban on chemical fertilizer by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, resulting in rice production in Sri Lanka falling by 40–50%, while other crops also suffered large losses with some even reaching 70% loss even before it was affected by the Russian crisis.
[87] On 9 May, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned from his position after protests on the country's economic crisis turned violent.
[88][89][90] Europe's energy crisis and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine caused significant price increases for European fertilizer and food industries.
[104] In April 2022, President Gabriel Boric announced a $3.7 billion economic recovery plan that included an increase in the minimum wage to help people deal with rising prices.
[115] From February 2 to April 1, Russia banned the export of ammonium nitrate (AN) to guarantee supplies for domestic farmers following the spike in global fertilizer prices, which were impacted by rising costs for natural gas.
Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns often result in lower crop yields due to water scarcity caused by drought, heat waves and flooding.
The world's livestock are also expected to be affected by many of the same issues, from greater heat stress to animal feed shortfalls and the spread of parasites and vector-borne diseases.
[8] The huge amount of precipitation in March and early April 2022 in mainland Spain provided relief but did not fully revert the ongoing meteorological drought.
[154][155][156] During the 2022 food crises, India began taking steps to export more rice and wheat, in part to fill the gaps created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
[162] A heatwave that deeply affected Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Southern Brazil caused yield declines for corn, soy, and other key grains, resulting in significant global commodity price increases.
[167] Drought made 28% of the agricultural territory of Brazil "no longer climatically optimal"[14] A severe flood in New South Wales during February 2022 caused the complete destruction of soy and rice crops and 36% of macadamia nut production.
[170] In China, rolling lockdowns as part of a zero-COVID policy significantly reduced key agricultural inputs for important grain crops.
[173][174][175] Rising meat consumption means a corresponding increase in demand for animal feed, especially corn and soybeans, which contributes to higher food prices.
[178][179] Bloomberg columnist Adam Minter wrote that "For China, such stockpiles are necessary to ensure it won't be at the mercy of major food exporters such as the U.S."[178] The Biden administration responded to the growing shortages in April by trying to increase US farm production.
[184] On 30 June 2022, Russia withdrew its troops from Snake Island to not obstruct U.N. attempts to open a humanitarian corridor allowing grains to be shipped from Ukraine.
On 16 July, major news outlets reported that Kyiv is definitely a step closer to being able to export grain through its Black Sea ports after talks with Russia, facilitated by Turkey, and the United Nations.
[23] On 14 September 2022, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated his concerns over a constrained fertilizer supply from Russia due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent economic sanctions.
[24][25] In May 2022, Máximo Torero, chief economist at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, warned European politicians that if they move away from natural gas production too soon, the price of fertilizers will rise and more people in the world will suffer from hunger.
