Worrying news is emerging that war and severe climate change are gradually pushing the world towards food shortages. A sharp rise in food prices last year compared to 2021 has made life miserable for ordinary people in many countries. It was the crash in production and distribution that hit the people like a thunderbolt. Most countries are adopting containment exercises by restricting exports and reducing consumption. International agencies including the World Bank had earlier warned that the poor people who did not get food are moving towards starvation in the new situation. Apart from that, there is now acute shortage of vegetables. A new study shows that if the people living below the poverty line have suffered daily, the scarcity of daily use vegetables will undermine safe diets and lead to global malnutrition.
The vegetable deficit that started with the war in Ukraine has been exacerbated by heavy floods in Pakistan, severe snowstorms in Central Asia, and unseasonal droughts in African and European countries. Due to the Russian war and embargo, grain exports from Ukraine, which used to produce a quarter of the world’s wheat, were almost completely stopped. As Russia has regularly attacked Ukrainian ports, cargo has been diverted through the Bosphorus in Turkey. The move to circumvent Russia’s naval blockade by using railroads connecting Eastern Europe with the rest of the world and large barges along the Danube was also initiated by the United States. As a result, the steep rise in prices of wheat and other food grains has been moderated recently. While it is in relief, the prices of everyday vegetables like onion, carrot, tomato, potato, chilli etc. are skyrocketing.
The global market says that onion is the villain that makes the world cry. In the eastern Philippines, onions are an integral part of the diet and are worth their weight in gold. Last year, typhoons caused crop losses worth billions of pesos. Onion prices have gone up from 70 pesos to 700 pesos in the last four months. From Kazakhstan to Turkey, the common topic of discussion is onion prices. If floods in Pakistan affect South Asia, floods and storms are a trap for Morocco. Unexpectedly severe drought in European countries disrupted resource availability in a large part of the world. The Netherlands, the world’s largest exporter of onions, is suffering from severe drought. Countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Belgium, Romania, Hungary, Luxembourg, Ukraine, Moldova, Ireland and Britain are all facing the worst drought in the last 500 years. All of Europe’s largest rivers, including the Danube, the Rio, and the Po, dried up, closing the main waterways and the movement of goods.
If it is the story of Europe, the severe threat of avalanches is in the agriculturally rich Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. A large amount of onion has become useless here. Things got messy again in Turkey when the earthquake came along with the price hike. All of them are suffering from scarcity of resources even though they have completely banned exports. Tomatoes and cucumbers have been rationed to just two per person in UK supermarkets.
In 2022, there was a big drop in food grain production in the world compared to the previous year. Warnings have already come out that if the vegetable shortage goes to this level, the world will move towards acute malnutrition. Diseases like stunted growth in children and anemia in pregnant women can occur due to malnutrition. According to a survey report published by the World Bank last month, 42 percent of people in the world do not have access to healthy and nutritious food. Rising public debt, depreciating currencies, high inflation, and rising interest rates are all staring the world at a time when the world is heading for a massive recession, as if food shortages are one more push.
The war between humans and nature is the biggest cause of this crisis and a big part of the solution is in our hands. The first step is ending the war in Ukraine. Similarly, if we are willing to create boundaries of decency and self-restraint within the exploitation of nature that leads to climate change, the earth will be re-flowered, resourceful and its inhabitants will be rich. Are we, humans, ready to atone in this time of danger for the lack of wisdom that did not plant ten saplings in the time of wealth? If not, the onion will drown the planet in tears, sure.