The food crisis currently affecting the world is not a result of the Russian war in Ukraine, and it is certainly not new. The international aid organization Oxfam states that long before the war began, wheat prices had already surged, rising by 80 percent between April 2020 and December 2021.
The often-cited link between the war in Ukraine and global hunger is one of ten myths that Oxfam dispels in the new study Fixing our Food, published today. That war did not cause the hunger but at most made the structural flaws of the global food system more visible.
The release of the Oxfam study comes just days before the informal ministerial meeting of the EU Agriculture Council next week in Prague. There, a proposal by Czech Minister Zdenek Nekula to declare food security an EU priority for the coming six months will be discussed.
Within the European Parliament, calls are also growing to temporarily postpone environmental measures that could reduce agricultural and food production.
Dutch Oxfam Novib agriculture expert Madelon Meijer, co-author of this international study, points out that since 2019 global hunger has increased significantly. This is not due to a shortage of food in the world but, according to the Oxfam study, entirely related to structural deficiencies in the global food system.
It is easy to blame the current food crisis on the war in Ukraine, but our food system has been vulnerable for much longer, Meijer says.
Food supply is increasingly under pressure, not only due to wars and armed conflicts but also because of the growing effects of climate change. The lingering economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic still play a role as well. Food price inflation hits low-income countries hard, but food prices are also rising rapidly in wealthy countries.