It's brought rising food prices, malnutrition, and the potential for much, much worse.

It threatens to keep tens of millions of people over the edge into mass hunger and famine.

(The global food crisis)

Until recently, global hunger was in decline.

But since 2014, it's been rising.

Over the past two years, the number of people without regular access to food has more than doubled.

Some 800 million people already go to bed hungry every night.

And now, the world's food system has been hit with a perfect storm.

2022 was already looking like a terrible year for global hunger as COVID still continue to grip some parts of the food supply chain worldwide.

You've had a series of bad harvests in recent years because of climate change⏤this all disrupted food production.

Those two shocks⏤climate change and the pandemic⏤have meant that, according to one estimate, global supply of wheat, one of the world's most important carbohydrates, has fallen for the first time in 4 years.

And then, the⏤what happened?

Ukraine's food exports all but stopped,

trapping around 25 million tons of corn and wheat inside the country, equivalent to the annual consumption of all of the world's least developed economies.

Ukraine's food exports are hugely important to the global food supply.

It's a big powerhouse in terms of grain production; it's one of the world breadbaskets.

And with that breadbasket off the market, prices rocketed.

Imagine if you were buying your food from Ukraine, and now, let's say, you need to go to Canada or Australia or Argentina.

That means that you will have to pay more because of [the] extra freight,

and you will have to pay more in time because it will take you longer,

and you will pass these costs to the consumer.

And other shocks have made the crisis worse.

We are in uncharted territory because, not only do we have a food crisis with multiple causes, but also this is coming on top of an energy crisis and also a fertilizer crisis.

Farms run on fuel and fertilizer; as prices of both have risen, farmers' profit margins have been squeezed.

And if they're forced to cut back on fertilizer because it's too expensive or unavailable, their yields will fall even more, at the worst possible time.

That will impact the production of major commodities for the next year.

And then we're looking at availability crisis⏤imagine what that would do to food prices.

It's a vicious cycle with potentially catastrophic consequences, and nowhere on earth is immune.

In America, rising food and energy costs have helped push inflation to its highest level since 1981.

Food prices in Britain are rising at a rate not seen for 13 years.

And in poorer countries, things are even worse.

(Tunisia)

([Arabic] People are getting hungry; there is no semolina, no oil, no sugar. If you're lucky, you'd buy one bottle of oil.)

For Suad, the food crisis has already hit home.

She's been selling "khobz tabouna", a traditional Tunisian bread made with semolina for the last 35 years.

([Arabic] I have 3 children; I am killing myself to feed and educate them.)

Now, the cost of her ingredients are going up and customers are buying less, leaving her with less money to feed her family.

([Arabic] Life is getting hard; really hard. Oil is more expensive, semolina is more expensive.)

([Arabic] Those who used to buy 5 or 6 are now buying only 2 or 3 breads. There are no sales, and men can't provide for their families.)

Tunisia usually imports about 42% of its wheat from Ukraine and relies on it for sunflower oil, another crucial commodity.

With those imports gone, Tunisia has struggled to find other suppliers it can afford, meaning shortages.

For people like Suad...

([Arabic] Life used to be easier before; everything used to be available.)

([Arabic] One doesn't even have a spoon of oil at home; we are really hungry.)

In Tunisia, hunger is turning to anger.

As food disappears from shelves, there's a risk Tunisians could lose patience with their government.

I'm really, really concerned about how this crisis can stoke civil unrest.

In 2008, we saw riots in upwards of 40 countries.

In 2011, we saw riots, but also the start of the Arab Spring.

([Arabic] Bread, freedom, and social equality.)

Today, we are looking at something which we haven't seen before.

While the Tunisian Revolution in 2011 wasn't caused by higher food prices, some believe it was a contributing factor.

And it's not just in Tunisia where hunger looks set to cause problems for governments.

([Arabic] It's terrible that families can't put a dignified plate of food on their table.)

"The Economist's" modeling suggests that many countries could see a doubling of the number of serious outbreaks of unrest over the next year,

and it wouldn't just be anger driving this unrest, but a genuine fear of going hungry.

Households in sub-Saharan Africa already spend up to 40% of their income feeding themselves.

A rise in prices means millions won't be able to afford to eat.

In many, many cases, their best day is like our worst day.

Imagine if you are spending 50% of your income just on food, how much space do you have for anything else?

And then, the prices of two things which really really matter, meaning your food and your fuel, they go up.

Governments are tapped out.

There are no safety nets.

Those that do have supplies have been turning inwards.

There are a number of fixes that countries are turning to; one of the unfortunate ones is protectionism.

That is to say, export controls and stockpiling.

Following severe heatwaves earlier this year, India banned wheat exports.

In total, 23 countries now have severe restrictions on food exports.

The thing is, they might be doing themselves more harm than good.

Time and again, it has been proven that it doesn't help inside the country which puts the export ban; it doesn't help outside the country.

Export bans can make a price problem worse.

Farmers may hoard their products until the ban is lifted or they might even switch to another crop.

That would reduce domestic supply further and push prices up.

Whilst you can sympathize with these countries that are doing this, the result is potentially much higher prices for everyone else.

That means the challenge faced by some of the world's poorest countries could grow even further.

We need to help governments reach their populations with affordable food, with affordable fuel, with fertilizer.

And what that will require is facilities⏤financing facilities which are accessible to these governments to do that.

Providing some loans at lower rates through the IMF, for example, so that they can afford to import and then, you know, pay back at their own pace.

Of course, the best way to help make food imports affordable again is to get Ukraine's exports back to the global market.

International negotiations have been trying to do just that.

But even with a deal in place, longer-term weaknesses in the world's food system would remain.

Which is why experts continue to warn about the prospects for a world that remains too dependent on too few countries for its food.

Less than 10 countries account for around 90% of our exports for key commodities like wheat, like corn, like rice, like soybean.

So, when there's a shock in any one of these countries, whether it be climate, whether it be conflict,

you see the consequences of that across the world.

Some countries are trying to insulate themselves from these shocks by becoming more self-sufficient.

It's an attractive idea.

And this year, the World Bank announced that it's making $30 billion available to help countries become more food secure.

But it's only part of the answer to avoiding another crisis.

The reality is that it's just too economically infeasible to be self-sufficient.

Most countries will always need to import some food.

And as the climate crisis worsens, global food shocks are set to become ever more frequent and harder to predict.

So, it makes sense not to put all of your eggs in one basket.

If you are a country which relies on imports, make sure that your import base is not so small, that it is diversified.

So, if one country stops, somebody else can jump in.

Where is our insurance for something as basic as national food security?

The world is already starting to understand the true cost of volatile prices.

Absolute levels of global hunger in 2022 could be the highest ever.

But without making some fundamental changes to how the world's food is supplied, the next crisis could be even more deadly.

What's at stake is the whole global order⏤unsufficient [sic] nourishment for millions upon millions of people.

This is not only about today; this is also about tomorrow.

It is our collective problem.

Thank you very much for watching.

And if you want to learn more about the global food crisis, please click on the link and don't forget to subscribe.