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It could just be my ignorance, but is world hunger really as inevitable as they say. Couldn't other countries step up production or tap into their grain reserve
by sss111 5y ago
It could just be my ignorance, but is world hunger really as inevitable as they say. Couldn't other countries step up production or tap into their grain reserves?
>World hunger is unavoidable... I can't tell you what the higher ups were thinking when they decided to go through with this operation
- ur-whale 5y agoNorthern Africa (maghreb, egypt, etc..) is hugely dependent on wheat from Ukraine and Russia. Wheat prices are through the roof right now [1], it's only going to get worse. So short-term impact pretty much guaranteed. Longer term, much of the euro zone agriculture is very dependent on fertilizers that are either produced using Russian natural gas or directly bought from there. Cost of growing food, if the situation doesn't improve, will increase dramatically. So, in other words, major increase in food shortages is a likely scenario indeed. [1] https://live.euronext.com/en/product/commodities-futures/EBM-DPAR https://live.euronext.com/en/product/commodities-futures/EBM...
- sumedh 5y ago> Northern Africa (maghreb, egypt, etc..) is hugely dependent on wheat from Ukraine and Russia. I dont think the US and Europe really care about that, they will send some token supplies but its not going to change their decision about Russia just because people in Africa are starving.
- roca 5y agoThe only way to guarantee sustained Ukrainian grain production is for the Russians to withdraw or for Ukrainians to surrender. I don't think the Ukrainians are obliged to surrender to stop people in other countries from starving. This is on Russia.
- greggsy 5y agoWould the Ukrainian agricultural sectors continue to operate effectively if Russia fully occupied the country, knowing that their wealth might be stolen? Would Russia move to bring their own oligarchs in to colonise and control production? Either way the restoration of production would take much longer than if Russia simply retreated.
- ur-whale 5y ago> its not going to change their decision about Russia just because people in Africa are starving. Up until the point where the problem spills over the borders and into Europe.
- hestefisk 5y agoThat said, EU destroys an incredible amount of food each year (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/brexit-leaving-eu-farming-agriculture https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/brexit...). Perhaps some of this could be put to good use. Also don’t forget Australia and America are huge grain producers and should be able to ramp up exports.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agoDidn't America have a poor wheat harvest last year?
- phatfish 5y agoIn the West just not wasting food is an easy first step. Businesses are most guilty of this. If there was a genuine crisis regulating food waste would help.
- codeflo 5y agoMedium term certainly, but short term, who knows. Prices go up, supply chains become interrupted, factories that process food go out of business. And it’s not like poorer countries in Africa can simply buy their way out of any supply issue the way the West can.
- watwut 5y agoImo, chances are, it is yet again bad analysis. Regardless of whether this is trolls writing or not. Prices of food will go up tho.
- watwut 5y agoSo, I gother it might not be bad analysis. The hunger thing is more about further east then further west where is more dependence on these.
- perlgeek 5y ago> Couldn't other countries step up production or tap into their grain reserves? Stepping up production isn't easy, since most arable land is being used for food production already. You'd have to increase farming efficiency. (Which is possible, but not easy; nobody wants to do inefficient farming, so if, as a farmer, you haven't raised efficiency, it's likely that you don't know how, or simply cannot, due to other constraints, such as availability of machines and fertilizer).