The ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, restricting the food exports from these countries besides giving a sharp rise to inflation, has worsened the already nagging food crisis in dozens of developing countries of the world. The situation has pushed the Food and Agriculture Organization’s ‘Food Price Index’ to an all-time high since the index began in 1990. According to the recent ‘2022 Global Report on Food Crises’, hunger levels had surpassed all previous records in 2021 itself, throwing around 19.3 crore people in acute food insecurity with Ukraine conflict, disrupted supply chains, Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, social and political unrests and instability and pests being the main drivers. The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have further warned that this acute food crisis could worsen during June, 2022 to September, 2022 in 20 countries or so.
Recent surveys by the World Bank in 83 countries are equally alarming, which suggest a significant number of people are running out of food. These surveys also show that a good number of people are forced to reduce their food consumption and reduced calorie intake in the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, which also indicates to the worsening health crisis that could have lasting impacts on the cognitive development of lakhs of children globally.
Inflation continues to rise across the globe with majority of the countries experiencing high food prices. According to the World Banks’s April 2022 Commodity Markets Outlook, as on June 16, 2022, the global agricultural price index is 14% higher compared to January 2022 and maize and wheat prices are 27% and 37% higher respectively compared to January 2022. The Ukraine conflict has further altered global patterns of trade, production and consumptions of commodities that may keep prices at historically high levels through the year of 2024, exacerbating the food inflation and food crisis.
Rising food prices have a serious impact on especially the people belonging to low and middle income countries as they spend a significant part of their income on food than high rich countries. Higher prices of energy and fertilizers along with trade and supply disruptions owing to the shutting down of major ports, may further worsen the situations.
However, India appears to be in a comfortable position. In recent years, the present government at the Centre has brought into action several ground breaking measures and methods for faster and more inclusive growth of farmers. The measures including land reforms, soil testing, augmenting water availability, agriculture productivity, credit and insurance, food security, crop insurance and farmers competitiveness, which have resulted in augmented food production. India- the world’s second largest producer of the grain has had five consecutive years of record harvests of wheat till 2021. As per the second advance estimates for 2021-22, total Food-grains production in the country is estimated at record 316.06 million tones, which is higher by 5.32 million tonnes than the production of food-grain during 2020-21.
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