Food crisis needs urgent action

 The issue of the food security has taken a serious turn as the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has raised serious concerns over the sudden surge on hunger level around the globe few days ago and asked the world to take immediate measures to resolve the issue of the global food insecurity.

According to the data,  the pandemic era of past two years has doubled the population of food insecure people and the recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine has made situation more difficult and worse. At present, there are over 276 million people come under the severely food insecure people, while this number was just 135 million before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic.

Rising cost of food and surge in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) have not only affected poor nations but also rich nations too. According to a recent reports at least five million population in the rich nations or G7 nations are unable to feed themselves and their families everyday due to rising cost of food.

The rising frequencies of extreme weather as well as effect of the climate changes have also affected agricultural pattern as well as foodgrain production. While the pandemic and conflict in the Eurasian region has affected the food supply chains around the world, the climate change and extreme weather have badly affected the yield of foodgrains per acre. According to the preliminary reports the yield of the foodgrain or wheat production have reduced by at least 20 percent in India this year. Here it is notable that Russia and Ukraine have been known as the breadbasket of the Europe and according to an estimates both the nations provide about 30 percent of wheat production to the world.

Needless to say that this year the global community have been either deprived from the one third of the wheat production or affected by the sanctions and glitches of global food supply chains. India has been almost self reliant as far as food productions are concerned. Twenty percent deficit in the wheat production has certainly put India in a tightrope walk situation as far as food security is concerned. India’s position in the global food index is already not in a good position.

Moreover, India is overburdened with the promises to supplies to the neighbour nations including Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Afghanistan and other nations. India has made promise to provide 50,000 metric ton of wheat. This certainly a huge amount and requires a huge logistic. Afghanistan is among the list of the most severely affected nations facing food crisis or food security.

Tens of the million of the people over the edge of the food insecurity, followed by the malnutrition, mass hunger as well as femine that will ultimately affect the individuals, families and societies in a devastating manner.

It is notable that 2023 is being celebrated International year of millets. This will help to provide some support to the nations facing severe food crisis to some extent. But millets cannot be a solution of the rising food insecurity in the fast changing global scenario. The recent discourse of the 30 nations in New York, in which India too was a participant, is indicating the requirement of some urgent action. 

(Contributed by Chandan Sharma)