Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley said the organization has had to cut food rations for many people worldwide who rely on the WFP.
“As global hunger soars way beyond the resources available to feed all the families who desperately need WFP’s help,” Beasley said in a statement. “We are being forced to make the heartbreaking decision to cut food rations for refugees who rely on us for their survival.”
Beasley said WFP had already “significantly reduced” rations across its operating areas. He indicated cuts of up to 50% are affecting 75% of all refugees supported by the WFP in Eastern Africa, including Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda.
He said severe funding constraints have forced the WFP to scale back rations for refugees living in Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, and Mali.
“Despite generous support from donors, resourcing remains insufficient to meet the very basic needs of refugee households, and imminent disruptions are expected in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe,” Beasley said.
Beasley asserted without new funds to support refugees — “one of the world’s most vulnerable and forgotten groups of people” — many could starve.
A Norwegian chemical and fertilizer company, Yara International, sounded the alarm at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May, warning of a catastrophic food crisis on the horizon, reported by The Dallas Express.
In late February, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted retaliatory sanctions by the United States and its Western allies, leading to a collapse in Russian fertilizer and Ukrainian grain exports.
According to Yara’s CEO, Svein Tore Holsether, the conflict has caused at least 15% of the world’s fertilizer supply to vanish from commodity markets. Additionally, Black Sea ports languish under approximately 25 million tons of corn and grain.
“Currently, we have an extreme combination of events when food supplies are going down, fertilizers supplies are doing down, gas supplies are going down, and prices for gas and fertilizers are rising,” Holsether told Reuters.
The WFP warned in April about the dangerous combination of food disruptions caused by the Ukraine conflict and soaring food inflation, which has resulted in an unprecedented global food crisis that is only getting worse, reported The Dallas Express.
Bloomberg Economics recently outlined Nigeria, India, Colombia, the Philippines, and Turkey as countries to monitor for food riots. Peru and Sri Lanka have already undergone social instability. Global food prices are above 2010/2011 Arab Spring levels.
Last week, Beasley said hundreds of millions of people around the globe are “marching towards starvation,” according to the Guardian.
