Famine and hunger has become both science and a political issue

The perception of famine has evolved under the massive population pressure from the mid-19th century until today from perceiving famine as an event, to being a process, and to determine how a problem becomes a crisis and how it eventually develop into a catastrophic situation has made us much more clever about sustainability and causes of the natural break down.

We have learned that many organic developments is performing in cyclicality, market mechanisms is not different. A lot of the economic decisions we make is based on experience, and as habits is hollowing the understanding of a bias percepted reality we often come to an edge following our instincts.

One of the first written sources describing famine is the Egyptian Famine stela "published" from 332 to 31 BC. But descriptive famine in 2665-2645 BC. Where in Egypt - then, as also today - it is the water level in the Nile and periodic flooding that determines and limits the harvest yield.

The root causes for the extended famine occurrences today are far more complex and lie especially in extension of contradictions and paradoxes in relation to the utilization of natural resources and strategic inconsistencies in relation to the long-term perspective in increased needs and necessary changes.

Thomas Malthus

The British economist Thomas Malthus in 1798 published his economic theory - you know the idea - that populations grow exponentially and always will grow faster than the available amount of food.

His simple deduction was that hunger is about lack of food and that the lack of food will be regulated through famine.

Luckily we became wiser in the following centuries as the logical conclusions of Thomas Malthus ceased to make sense.

Amartya Sen

At the end of the last century, the Indian economist Amartya Sen published his famous essay "Poverty and Famines. An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation", which did away with the idea that food shortages are the primary cause of famine.

As a 10-year-old, Amartya Sen experienced the Bengali famine in India and Bangladesh in 1943. Experiencing millions of people die of starvation, despite the fact that there was plenty of supplies to feed everyone.

Amartya Sen pointed out in his clarity that modern famine disasters are due to poverty and inequality. People are generally starving - not because there is a shortage of food - but because they are too poor to get a fair share of the supplies.

Famine, fatality impact and responsive food security policies in a scientific and political frame

We have a department (OCHA) under the world community that aims to ensure coherence in the response to the world's humanitarian crises. OCHA is the part of the United Nations Secretariat responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies.

On the edge of today's crises, challenges and obstacles we have created by neglecting consequences and pursuing short-term policies, we are looking into a near future scenario where yellow and red warning leds' are flashing in still more fields.

Famine has become a political issue

In order to be able to make strategic decisions effectively, it is crucial that we can differentiate severity and impact in order to direct the right efforts at the right time. Being able to read where situations are heading on focusing key indicators is a prerequisite for making the right decisions.

Catastrophe communication has it's own language, reflecting our understanding of the themes and what we are supposed doing about it.

What especially makes the messages difficult to access is that such fundamental issues as the maintenance of life and the nutritional status of the majority of the earth's population have neither focused space nor news interest in a world that focuses on simple contexts and sympathies and antipathies with a strong rash of Bias.

According to a recent survey from the European Union, around 193 million people in 53 countries or territories experienced acute food insecurity at crisis or worse levels in 2021. Representing an increase of approx. 40 million people compared with the already record numbers of 2020

By so far 2022 is shaping up to be an extremely difficult year for the global food system.

With 47 million people in the world on the edge of famine, the problem is acute and finding solutions is an urgent matter.

The number of people facing acute food insecurity now has more than doubled from 135 million before the pandemic to 276 million as of now.

Aggregated numbers combined shows that more than half a million people (570.000) in Ethiopia, southern Madagascar, South Sudan and Yemen is classified in the most severe phase of acute food insecurity Catastrophe, and it requires urgent action to avert widespread collapse of livelihoods, starvation and death.

A committee on hunger and food security is set up under the auspices of the UN. There are signature- and tons of key notes events for the adoption of resolutions on international adherence to address the food crisis.

According to the committee's May 2022 Monthly Forecast, it has been agreed to define hotspots and criticality of the food crisis, as well as identifying that existing or potential conflict-related food security crises are key issues for the Council.

The impact of the Ukraine war on food insecurity is another prominent issue. This includes the war’s effects on Ukraine’s agricultural productivity and exports and the possible consequences for the global food system of the sanctions imposed on Russia.

Indeed, conflict and food crisis are a thematic issue under the auspices of the United Nations, whilst the committee is preparing the next forecast the crisis is expanding.

A brief summary of population issues

A thousand years ago there was 50.000.000 million people on earth.

Given a current global population of about 7.96 billion as of June 2022, a revised estimate calculate that those alive in 2020 represented nearly 7% of the total number of people who have ever lived - which was a total of about 117 billion.

It took all of human history up to 1804 for the world's population to reach 1 billion. But the next billion came only 100 years later, in 1927. 

And after that, the rate of growth just accelerated, 

• 3 billion in 1959
• 4 billion 1974
• 5 billion 1987
• 6 billion 1999
• and for now 7,9+ billion

The question is, how big will the population get on earth?

The total population growth rate has slowed down systematically by a frequency of approx. 3% per year from 1970 and ahead.

Data from the UN also reveals that the global fertility rate has dropped by nearly 50% from the 1950s.

Data also suggest that as women get better access to birth control and are more able to participate in the job market, causes the birth rate to decline.

Urbanization play an important role in population changes because child labour is more important outside cities. 

Most of the world's population increase is occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, especially in Nigeria and India.

The United States and China both stands out in the data. Both countries number among the fastest growing populations (and are two of the three most populous countries all ready).

The US has a fertility rate comparable to other developed countries, but it has a rate of immigration that keeps its population well above similar fertility levels.

China would had been the fastest growing population, if not for the ongoing effects of the (now abandoned) one-child policy. 

The figure shows historical population estimates 1950–2015, and projected population 2016-2100, by region, according to the medium fertility scenario.

Still today, living conditions and premises pose the greatest danger to humans in the first year of life. In an ideal world, as many girls as boys survived infancy, and the mortality rate for first-time mothers would not weigh down in the undeveloped part of the world.

The hard fact though, is that girl infants and first time mothers in the third world has a lesser chance of survival than their respectively brothers. We are all well aware that the world is far from ideal, and that the world does not have a goal to fundamentally change the living conditions on this planet, so that more children than we can count on one hand wouldn't die per second for reasons due to malnutrition and hunger. Sadly, this is even not a problem that levels with the challenges we are going to face in the year 2050.

The problem is not due to a lack of food stocks or agricultural capacity - the problem of infantile excess mortality is due solely to economic ability, poverty and social unwillingness to take up responsibility so that an unproportional amount of children of the future also not will die of malnutrition in their infancy because of poverty compared to their fellow infants in the wealthier parts of the planet.

The cause of the food crisis the abdication of responsibility.

How strange is it not, that the world never before experienced a plentifulness of resources as of today, and that the technical and educational competency level and ability globally is at an all-time high for our species.

Development of the Science of hunger

Accordingly to online encyclopaedias under the massive population growth over the the last century we have developed an understanding of the root causes and how to deal with them.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), also known as IPC scale, is a tool for improving food security analysis and decision-making. It is a standardized scale that integrates food security, nutrition and livelihood information into a statement about the nature and severity of a crisis and implications for strategic response.

A tension that has existed in all attempts to define a famine is between definitions of famine as an event and definitions as a process.

In the first case, famine is defined (roughly) as the event of many people dying of starvation within a locality or region.

In the second, famine is described as a chronology beginning with a disruption or disruptions that gradually leads to widespread death.

However, these general definitions have little utility for those implementing food relief as "region", "widespread", etc. are undefined.

One of the earliest methods of measurement was the Indian Famine Codes developed by the British colonial in the 1880s. The Famine Codes defined three levels of food insecurity: near-scarcity, scarcity, and famine.

"Scarcity" was defined as three successive years of crop failure, crop yields of one-third or one-half normal, and large populations in distress.

"Famine" further included a rise in food prices above 140% of "normal", the movement of people in search of food, and widespread mortality. The Punjab Food Code stated, "Imminence of death is the sole criterion for declaration of famine."

Inherent in the Famine Codes was the assumption that famine was an event, and not a process.

Previously famines had been perceived as a threat to individuals, even large numbers of individuals. Inherent in the livelihoods strategies outlook is the conception of famine as a social problem

Populations affected by increased food stress will try to cope through market structures (i.e. selling possessions for food) and reliance upon community and family support structures.

It is only when such social structures collapse under the strain that individuals are faced with the malnutrition and starvation that has commonly been viewed as "famine".

Older models simply concentrated on the mortality of famine victims. However, relief agencies gradually realized that the means by which families and individuals supported themselves were threatened first

During the 1980s and 1990s, studies of the process by which populations adapted to food stress as food security worsened received much attention.

Four stages of the process were identified:

Reversible strategies, in response to 'normal' food stress, such as rationing food or diversifying income

Irreversible strategies in response to prolonged food stress, such as selling breeding livestock or mortgaging land, which trade short-term survival for long-term difficulty

The failure of internal coping methods and total dependence on external food aid

Severe malnutrition leading to weakened immune systems, illness and death, in the event of the failure of the first three levels of coping.

Death caused directly by starvation forms a fraction of deaths in a famine.

Alarmingly, we have become competent in differentiating famine on the impact it has on infant mortality, general health status and the scale in between.

Various nutrition benchmarks have been proposed as the cut-off points for food insecurity levels.

• The United Nations Refugee Nutrition Information System lists a number of such indicator cutoff points
• Freshly-dug graves for child victims of the 2011 East Africa drought, Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya Wasting - defined as less than -2 standard deviations in body weight, usually for children between six and 59 months
• 5-10% = normal in African populations in non-drought conditions Greater than 20% = "serious situation"
• Greater than 40% = "severe crisis"
• Oedema due to kwashiorkor (swollen belly) is always a "cause for concern"
• Crude mortality rate (CMR), i.e. number of deaths per ten thousand people in a time span 1 / 10,000 / day = "serious situation"
• Greater than 2 / 10,000 / day = "emergency out of control"
• Under-five mortality rate (U5MR), i.e. number of deaths of children under five years of age within a time span 2 / 10,000 / day = "serious situation"
• 4 / 10,000 / day = "emergency out of control"

The use of these cut-offs is contentious. Some argue that a crude mortality rate of one death per ten thousand people per day is already a full-scale emergency. Others note that while most indicators are focused on children, parents will often reduce their own food consumption in favor of their children.

Child malnutrition may thus be a trailing indicator, indicating non-emergency levels even after adult malnutrition has reached crisis levels.

It has also been noted that malnutrition is often not directly related to food availability; Malnutrition is often the result of disease or poor child-care practices, even with adequate food availability.

Combined intensity and magnitude scales

In 2004, Paul Howe and Stephen Devereux, both of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, set forth a measurement of famine with scales for both "intensity" and "magnitude", incorporating many of the developments of recent decades.

Using this framework, each famine would receive a Magnitude designation, but locations within the affected region would be classified at varying Intensities. The 1998 southern Sudan famine would be a C: Major Famine, with an intensity of 5: Extreme famine in Ajiep village ranging to 3: Famine in Rumbek town. In comparison, the 2000 Ethiopian famine in Gode district would be classified as a B: Moderate famine, and would thus should demand proportionally less of the limited resources available for famine relief.

While each organization working in famine-related areas has its own operational interpretation of specific indicators, the Howe-Devereaux framework has been widely adopted as a common framework by which famine warning and famine relief may be discussed worldwide, in particular in the use of the intensity scale. This has led organizations such as the World Food Programme to refrain from referring to the 2005 Niger food crisis as a famine, as indicators had not deteriorated into a Level 3: Famine.

Globally, levels of hunger remain alarmingly high. In 2021, they surpassed all previous records as reported by the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), with close to 193 million people acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance across 53 countries/territories, according to the findings of the GRFC 2022. This represents an increase of nearly 40 million people compared to the previous high reached in 2020.

Globally, levels of hunger remain alarmingly high. In 2021, they surpassed all previous records as reported by the Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), with close to 193 million people acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance across 53 countries/territories, according to the findings of the GRFC 2022. This represents an increase of nearly 40 million people compared to the previous high reached in 2020 (reported in the GRFC 2021).

This increase must be interpreted with care, given that it can be attributed to both a worsening acute food insecurity situation and a substantial (22 percent) expansion in the population analysed between 2020 and 2021. However, even when considering the share of the analysed population in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent, the proportion of the population in these phases has increased since 2020.

When considering the results of the six editions of the GRFC, the number of people has risen by 80 percent since 2016, when around 108 million people across 48 countries were acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance (Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent.

When comparing the 39 countries/territories that were consistently in food crisis in all six editions of the GRFC, the number of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent almost doubled between 2016 and 2021 – up from 94 million to almost 180 million.

This increase across the six years of the GRFC – both in terms of absolute numbers and the percentage of the analysed population in these three highest acute food insecurity phases – reflects increased availability of acute food insecurity data, broader geographical coverage, revised population figures, and deteriorating food security contexts in a number of countries.

The outlook for global acute food insecurity in 2022 is expected to deteriorate further relative to 2021. In particular, the unfolding war in Ukraine is likely to exacerbate the already severe 2022 acute food insecurity forecasts included in this report, given that the repercussions of the war on global food, energy and fertilizer prices and supplies have not yet been factored into most country-level projection analyses.

The GRFC focuses on food crises where the local capacities to respond are insufficient, prompting a request for the urgent mobilization of the international community, as well as in countries/territories where there is ample evidence that the magnitude and severity of the food crisis exceed the local resources and capacities needed to respond effectively.

It provides estimates for populations in countries/territories where data are available, based on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) and Cadre Harmonisé (CH) or comparable sources. Populations in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent are in need of urgent food and livelihood assistance.

A closer look at 2021

In 2021, almost 40 million people were facing Emergency or worse (IPC/CH Phase 4 or above) conditions, across 36 countries. Of critical concern were over half a million of people (570 000) facing Catastrophe (IPC/CH Phase 5) – starvation and death – in four countries: Ethiopia, South Sudan, southern Madagascar and Yemen. The number of people facing these dire conditions is four times that observed in 2020 and seven times higher than in 2016. During the first half of 2021, localized areas in South Sudan continued to face Famine Likely (IPC Phase 5).

An additional 236 million people were in Stressed (IPC/CH Phase 2) across 41 countries/territories in 2021 and required livelihood support and assistance for disaster risk reduction to prevent them from slipping into worse levels of acute food security.

In 2021, almost 70 percent of the total number of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent were found in ten food crisis countries/territories: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yemen, northern Nigeria, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Sudan, South Sudan, Pakistan, and Haiti. In seven of these, conflict/insecurity was the primary driver of acute food insecurity.

Drivers of acute food insecurity in 2021

While the food crises profiled in the GRFC continue to be driven by multiple, integrated drivers that are often mutually reinforcing, conflict/insecurity remains the main driver. In 2021, around 139 million people were facing Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent across 24 countries/territories where conflict/insecurity was considered the primary driver.

This is a marked increase from 2020, when 99 million people in 23 conflict-affected countries/territories were in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent. It was the key driver in three of the four countries with populations in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) – Ethiopia, South Sudan and Yemen.

Economic shocks formed the main driver in 21 countries in 2021, where 30.2 million people were in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent. Global food prices rose to new heights in 2021 as a result of a combination of factors, notably an uneven global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread supply chain disruptions.

Domestic food price inflation in many low-income countries rose significantly, particularly those with weak currencies and a high reliance on food imports, in those where border closures, conflict or insecurity disrupted trade flows and where weather extremes severely curtailed food production/availability. These macroeconomic factors had a major impact on the purchasing power of the poorest households, many of which were still experiencing job and income losses due to pandemic-related restrictions.

Weather extremes were the main drivers of acute food insecurity in eight African countries, with 23.5 million people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent, including in southern Madagascar, where nearly 14 000 people were in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) in April–September 2021 due to the effects of drought.

The impact of weather-related disasters on acute food insecurity has intensified since 2020, when it was considered the primary driver for 15.7 million people across 15 countries. Weather shocks – in the form of drought, rainfall deficits, flooding and cyclones – have been particularly detrimental in key crises in East, Central and Southern Africa, and Eurasia.

Malnutrition in food-crisis countries

Malnutrition remained at critical levels in countries affected by food crises, driven by a complex interplay of factors, including low quality food due to acute food insecurity and poor child-feeding practices, a high prevalence of childhood illnesses, and poor access to sanitation, drinking water and health care.

While data is limited, according to analyses carried out in 2021, almost 26 million children under 5 years old were suffering from wasting and in need of urgent treatment in 23 of the 35 major food crises. Within this, over 5 million children were at an increased risk of death due to severe wasting. In the ten food-crisis countries with the highest number of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent, 17.5 million children were wasted.

Displacement in 2021

People uprooted from their homes are among the most vulnerable to acute food insecurity and malnutrition. In 2021, out of 51 million internally displaced people (IDP) globally, nearly 45 million were in 24 food-crisis countries/territories. The six countries/territories with the highest numbers of IDPs – the Syrian Arab Republic, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, Ethiopia and the Sudan – were among the ten largest food crises in 2021 by numbers of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent.

Out of around 21 million refugees and 4 million asylum seekers globally in 2021, over 60 percent (around 15.3 million people) were hosted in 52 food-crisis countries/territories, where a mix of conflict/insecurity, COVID-19, poverty, food insecurity and weather extremes compounded their humanitarian plight (UNHCR, November 2021).

A grim outlook for 2022

The situation is expected to worsen in 2022. In 41 out of the 53 countries/territories included in this report, as well as Cabo Verde, between 179 million and 181 million people are already forecast to be in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent in 2022. No forecast was available at the time of publication for 12 of the 53 countries/territories with an estimate reported in 2021.

For most of the world’s major food crises, acute food insecurity is expected to persist at similar levels to 2021 or increase. Major deteriorations are anticipated in northern Nigeria, Yemen, Burkina Faso and the Niger due to conflict, as well as in Kenya, South Sudan and Somalia, largely due to the impact of consecutive seasons of below-average rains.

Though significant uncertainty exists, an estimated 2.5–4.99 million people in Ukraine will likely need humanitarian assistance in the near term (FEWS NET, April 2022).

During 2022, around 329 000 people will likely face Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) in three countries. It is expected that for the fifth consecutive year, Yemen will have populations in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5), with 161 000 people projected to be in this phase in the second half of 2022 under the most likely scenario. In a less likely, worst-case scenario, there is a Risk of Famine in at least two districts. Another 87 000 people are projected to face Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) in South Sudan due to the cumulative effects of conflict/insecurity, weather extremes and macro-economic challenges. In Somalia, prolonged drought could push 81 000 people into Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5). Although not the most likely scenario, a Risk of Famine could emerge in Somalia by mid-2022, if the April–June Gu season rains fail, if conflict intensifies, if drought increases displacement and if food prices continue to rise. An additional factor influencing a Risk of Famine is if humanitarian assistance is not scaled up and does not reach the country's most vulnerable populations.

Our collective challenge

The alarmingly high incidence of acute food insecurity and malnutrition starkly exposes the fragility of global and local food systems that are under mounting strain from the increased frequency and severity of weather extremes, the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing conflict and insecurity and rising global food prices. The interconnectedness of drivers is further laid bare by the unfolding war in Ukraine, which not only compromises the food security of those directly affected by the war, but compounds existing challenges faced by millions of acutely food-insecure people worldwide.

Some countries facing food crises are particularly vulnerable to the risks to food markets created by the war in the Black Sea area, notably due to their high dependency on imports of food, fuel and agricultural inputs and/or vulnerability to global food price shocks.

While the international community has stepped up to calls for urgent famine mitigation action, global humanitarian and development funding for food crises is failing to match growing needs. While funding for humanitarian food assistance has been falling since 2017, the current shortfall is particularly stark due the COVID-19-induced economic slowdown and prioritization of the public health response to the pandemic.

The way forward

The international community must anticipate and act to mitigate the severe consequences of those already experiencing the highest levels of acute food insecurity, as well as of those in food stress. The situation calls more than ever for at-scale action to protect lives and livelihoods and support sustainable food systems and production where it is needed most.

In contexts where food availability is limited by reduced imports and food access curtailed by higher prices and reduced humanitarian food assistance, providing support to farmers to raise their productivity and improve their access to markets, and to rural communities to diversify their livelihoods and enhance their resilience to shocks is crucial.

The international community must mobilize the investments and political will needed to collectively address the causes and consequences of escalating food crises across humanitarian, development and peace perspectives. The urgency to do this will likely continue to grow in the coming months and years, driven by the direct and indirect effects of the war in Ukraine.

The GRFC is a powerful guide for decision-makers in the international community. Though this report demonstrates that overall quality of data has improved, further work is needed to improve coverage, quality and timeliness of data collection and analysis. High quality and timely food security and nutrition data and information are vital in ensuring a situation analysis that identifies not only outcomes, but hunger’s main drivers, for a targeted and integrated response.

Policies for a better future

There is a severe risk, that the food and nutrition crisis in Africa is being further aggravated due to

• The persistent on-going insecurity
• population displacement,
• the share impact of the climate crisis
• the disrupted food systems
• the limited food production
• barriers to regional trade

and the socioeconomic fallout from the pandemic which has already devastated the national economies.

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine that violently is disrupting the global trade of food, fertilisers and oil products is simply a nail to the coffin we don't need.

But the crisis also presents an opportunity to address the root cause to why food security scales out off chart in the sub-regions.

By developing food and agricultural systems that are less dependent on external shocks, and a more productive and efficient local agriculture with a particular emphasis on the consumption of local food products.

Ethical subsidy schemes is the way out of famine

As we expect a general rise in food prices over the next few decades, and as that happens, it will create a strong incentive to increase production.

Unfortunately, the development also causes large price fluctuations that hit the world's poorest people hard.

Strong economic incentives for increased food production will also lead to major environmental problems due to the intensification of cultivation methods or the fact that e.g. natural forest areas are included in agricultural land, as is already happening on a large scale, e.g. in Africa and South America.

Less than 1 in 5 landholders in developing countries are women – and the proportion of women landholders in North Africa, West Asia and Oceania is less than 1 in 20.

By failing to close the gender gap in agriculture, the world is paying dearly.

The net impact of these barriers is a systematic gap between women’s potential contributions to food security and household resilience and what they are able to achieve today.

Time is up for agricultural policies and subsidy schemes that support and reward farmers who use regenerative methods, improve soil's fertility and uphold species richness globally.

The world is taking a quadrupled crisis blow in 2022

To take the world into a good spot it takes competent leadership. This year will show whether we also suffer from a leadership crisis

The current Neighboring War between Russia Ukraine has today developed and expanded from the themes of sovereignty and appliance in relation to Russia's security strategies to a global bouquet of themes that include economic cooperation platforms such as banking systems, supply agreements regarding energy that includes very large parts of the world's consumption of fossil fuels and extensive logistical upheavals in relation to raw materials and food.

At best, we are entering a moment of economic stagnation where the world's food supply capacity is experiencing a temporary decline, but in any case, the disruption of supplies of wheat and energy will drive developments in the coming years.

All net-importing countries that depend on a well-functioning just-in-time market for food from 2023 and during 2022 will attempt to fully hedge their positions on food deliveries with just-in-case positions, and this will drive both prices up and restraint the supply capacity, rising red flags already from within the next quarter.

The war is devastating to the Ukrainian reality and has brought the country into a crucial struggle for independence and sovereignty, the stakes are sky high for anyone related to the crisis, Putin, Russia and the West, let alone the third world.

Putin has de facto taken the world's food supply hostage. A famine scenario among the world's poorest is bulding up by the day, which in terms of supply relies on supplies from both Russia and Ukraine via the Black Sea.

Wheat and corn account for almost of 30% of all calories or simply all food (in various forms) in the world. Ukraine and Russia together export about 30% of all wheat and about 18% of all corn in the world. Wheat is the key commodity for global food security. Ukraine alone exports about 10% of all wheat and about 16% of all corn in the world.

Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Yemen, Israel, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Libya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Türkey) are the main buyers of wheat and corn, and for these countries the problem of food security is especially acute as an more than 400 million people globally depend from grain supplies from Ukraine alone.

Without an overall food supply strategy, net importers of food will drive uptake current inflation in purchasing power sharply, while production slows down, destroyed production facilities and logistical collapses are flatten the capacities, declining production growth will erode the necessary build-up of supply.

Potential for sporadic collapses to escalate to catastrophic levels in many layers off the world economy.

Food crises, insufficient supplies or collapsed logistics links fuel a parallel debt crises due to inflation and exploding prices of substitution goods.

The result is a global decline in agricultural production caused by the increased scarcity of fertilizer, feed and seeds due to the increased demand, which will subsequently dampen economic conditions to stagnate due to weakened investment power in most of the world's primary agricultural countries, which will be caught in debt due to rising interest rates, increased lending facilities, rising energy prices and inflation eroding the purchasing power.

The alleged result of the scarcity in the crucial wheat yield will affect the ability to supply food of all different kinds supplementaries like oils and grains, and is further impacting all crops markets because they too are driven by the wheat market in supply deficit situations by substitution.

In terms of mitigation of the crisis, on the short term a strict focus is needed to be on increasing supplies globally of primarily fertilizers and food, and there should be targeted assistance for in particular the family based farms outside the industrialised world which is covering more than half of the global food supply.

The World Bank has also warned against an extended crisis scenario arising from the inability of developing countries to service their large pandemic debts, amid the rising food and energy prices.

According to the newest figures, up to 60% of the poorest countries currently are either in debt distress or at high risk of becoming in debt distress.

It is urgent to define economic models to implement that reduces the debt burden for countries that is already in an unsustainable debt scenario, or is going there during this year, in order to optimize the capacity of the food supplies and prevent widespread famine to add to the crisis.

Large price fluctuations seriously - apart from relentless day trading and short investment funds that probably will prosper - equally affect the world's poorest and richest people.

But those who already have difficulties affording basic foods will attain major problems, and it is expected to lead to further starvation around the world.

Whether we harvest, share or enhance food options - knowing what to do about it is essential to success.

To address the increasing food crisis, putting support to family farmers first on the agricultural agenda is directing the primary effort where food supplies for the majority of the world population actually is produced.

9 out of 10 of the world's 570 million farms are managed by families, the family farm is the predominant form of agriculture at earth, and consequently a crucial agent of change in achieving sustainable food security and in eradicating hunger in the future.

People are starving today, not because there is shortage of food supply the world's population, but the fact that many people around the world cannot afford to buy food.

By short, the problem is house holding, not capacity issues.

As the world has its optics focused on the war in Ukraine - and today focused on the public opinion in Russia, as this particular day marks the end of the last great occupation of Russian territories, globally we must look ahead, as Putins war has not caused the world less problems.

The crisis in 2022 is a scenario of crises within crises and potential for sporadic collapses to escalate to catastrophic levels in many layers off the world economy.

Without an overall food supply strategy, net importers of food will drive inflation in purchasing power sharply, while production slows down, and destroyed production facilities and logistical collapses are flatten the capacities, zero production growth will erode the necessary build-up of supply, a process already effective now.

Globally we need to to support a growth perspective in food production, that by subsidiary principles works where the people are, to prevent widespread famine.

It goes without saying that economic models that reduction of the debt burden for third world countries, already in an unsustainable debt scenario, or is going there during this year, is necessary in order to optimize the capacity of the food supplies and prevent widespread famine to add to the crisis.