A worker collects Egyptian traditional 'baladi' flatbread at a bakery in el-Sharabia, Shubra district of Cairo. Photo / Nariman El-Mofty, AP, File
A worker collects Egyptian traditional 'baladi' flatbread at a bakery in el-Sharabia, Shubra district of Cairo. Photo / Nariman El-Mofty, AP, File
Editorial
EDITORIAL
With a pandemic in full sway and climate change wreaking havoc, one might contend the world has quite enough to deal with.
However, a food crisis caused by pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and extreme weather events has been conflated by the blockade of Ukrainian grain by Russian forces. Achief economist at the UN World Food Programme says the war has more than doubled the number of people in "food crisis" to 345 million. Fifty million are "one step away from famine".
Mankind has developed from agriculturally self-sustaining to trading-reliant. This has afforded great advances and better lives for many but is vulnerable to upheaval. When supply lines fail, millions are within days of hunger; weeks from starvation. Egypt, as an example, grows less than half the food it eats. About 80 per cent of its grain comes from Ukraine and Russia.
Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations are scheduled to sign an agreement in the early hours of this morning (NZ time) setting up a grain exports corridor across the Black Sea and establishing a co-ordination centre in Istanbul.
The grain export agreement, critically important for global food security, will be signed in Istanbul tomorrow under the auspices of President Erdoğan and UN Secretary General Mr. Guterres together with Ukranian and Russian delegations.
The UN was founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51 countries committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, and promoting social progress, better living standards, and human rights.
Food security right now must be the UN's focus if it is to help stabilise an increasingly volatile world.
This signing could also signal a small step in the right direction for resolving the war in Ukraine.
