Friends reflect on global food crisis
‘As 811 million people go to bed hungry every night, the number of those facing acute food insecurity has more than doubled.'
The ‘structural drivers’ of global food insecurity need to be addressed, in addition to providing humanitarian aid.
This was one of the conclusions of a seminar on the crisis hosted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) last month.
Quaker theologian Esther Mombo, from St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya, sent a reflection to the briefing, where UN, civil society experts and church leader speakers shared their ‘urgent responses’.
According to WCC, food prices are at their highest since records began sixty years ago.
‘As 811 million people go to bed hungry every night, the number of those facing acute food insecurity has more than doubled – from 135 million to 276 million – since 2019. A total of 44 million people in 38 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.’
Tim Gee, general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, who attended the online talk, said that, in many countries, the problem is less to do with availability and more to do with accessibility and affordability. In a long Twitter thread, he said there have been ‘plenty of warnings’ but the root causes have never been addressed. ‘These include unequal land ownership, poorer country debts that should have been cancelled and unregulated markets.’
He said that the issue has been exacerbated by: climate change; the ‘false solution’ of biofuels (leading to food being burnt for energy); and rocketing fossil fuel prices (making food even more expensive).
Richer countries’ shift to military spending over overseas aid, and the continuing scandal of tax havens, is also playing a part, he added.
The briefing was part of WCC’s commitment to the UN’s Global Crisis Response Group’s Food Workstream Network.
The workstream network meets each week to monitor the situation.
