U.N.: RECORD NUMBER OF PEOPLE WITHOUT ENOUGH TO EAT IN 2021

Conflict, weather extremes, pandemic cited as factors

The United Nations said Wednesday that the number of people without enough to eat on a daily basis reached all-time high last year and is poised to hit “appalling” new levels as the Ukraine war affects global food production.

Almost 193 million people in 53 countries suffered acute food insecurity in 2021 due to what the U.N. said was a “toxic triple combination” of conflict, weather extremes and the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.N. said the total number of people without adequate food every day increased by 40 million last year, confirming a “worrisome trend” of annual increases over several years.

The figures appeared in the Global Report on Food Crisis, which is produced jointly by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Program and the European Union.

Countries experiencing protracted conflicts, including Afghanistan, Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, had the most food-insecure populations, according to the report.

The report forecasts that Somalia will face one of the world’s worst food crises in 2022 due to prolonged drought, increasing food prices and persistent violence. The various factors could lead 6 million Somalis into acute food crisis, the U.N. said.

“Today, if more is not done to support rural communities, the scale of the devastation in terms of hunger and lost livelihoods will be appalling,” the U.N. said. “Urgent humanitarian action is needed on a massive scale to prevent that from happening.”

The war in Ukraine poses further risks for Somalia and many other African countries that rely on Ukraine and Russia for wheat, fertilizer and other food supplies.

WFP’s Chief Economist Arif Husain said the U.N. food agency projects that an additional 47 million people will become food insecure “in crisis or worse situation” because of the war in Ukraine as a result of higher food and fuel prices and inflation.

Even before the war, people were dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and reduced incomes, and food prices were at a 10-year high and fuel prices were at a seven-year high, he told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York at a virtual news conference unveiling the report.

“When we look at the consequences of what’s happening as a result of the war in Ukraine, there is real cause for concern of how this will amplify the acute food needs that exist in these food crisis countries,” said Rein Paulsen, director of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s office of emergencies and resilience.

He told the virtual U.N. briefing that the percentage of the population analyzed in the report who are in acute food insecurity has gone up from just over 11 percent in 2016 to just over 22 percent in 2021.