World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at WFP headquarters in Rome, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. Beasley, the UN food chief warned Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022 that the world faces ; a perfect storm over a perfect storm? and urged aid donors, particularly Gulf states and billionaires, to give a few days of profits to deal with a fertilizer supply crisis right now and prevent widespread food shortages next year. The UN food chief warned on Thursday that the world was facing “a perfect storm on top of a perfect storm” and urged donors, particularly Gulf states and billionaires, to give a few days of profits to deal with a crisis with supply of fertilizers at this time and prevent widespread food shortages next year. “Otherwise, there will be chaos all over the world,” said World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley in an interview with The Associated Press. Beasley said that when he took the helm of WFP 5 1/2 years ago, only 80 million people around the world were driven to starvation. “And I’m thinking, ‘Well, I can shut down the World Food Program,’” he said. But climate problems have increased that number to 135 million. The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, has doubled that to 276 million people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Finally, Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, sparking a war and a food, fertilizer and energy crisis that took the number to 345 million. “That’s 50 million people in 45 countries knocking on the door of starvation,” Beasley said. “If we don’t reach these people, you’re going to have hunger, starvation, destabilization of nations unlike what we saw in 2007-2008 and 2011, and you’re going to have mass migration.” “We must answer now.” Beasley meets with world leaders and has spoken at events during this week’s gathering of General Assembly leaders to warn about the food crisis. General Assembly President Tsamba Korosi noted in his opening remarks on Tuesday that “we live, it seems, in a permanent situation of humanitarian need.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that conflicts and humanitarian crises are spreading and the funding gap for the UN. Humanitarian appeals stand at $32 billion — “biggest gap ever.” This year, Beasley said, the war has shut down grain shipments from Ukraine — a nation that produces enough food to feed 400 million people — and sharply curtailed shipments from Russia, the world’s second-largest fertilizer exporter and a major food producer. Beasley said donor fatigue often undermines aid, particularly in countries in ongoing crisis like Haiti. Inflation is also a serious issue, driving up prices and hitting poor people who don’t have the capacity to cope because COVID-19 “just ruined them financially”. So mothers, she said, are forced to decide: Do they buy cooking oil and feed their children, or do they buy heating oil to keep from freezing? Because there is not enough money to buy both. “It’s a perfect storm on top of a perfect storm,” Beasley said. “And with the fertilizer crisis we’re dealing with right now, with the droughts, we’re facing a food pricing problem in 2022. That’s created havoc around the world.” “If we don’t get it done quickly – and I don’t mean next year, I mean this year – you’re going to have a food availability problem in 2023,” he said. “And that will be hell.” Beasley explained that the world now produces enough food to feed over 7.7 billion people in the world, but 50% of that food is because farmers used fertilizer. They cannot have these high returns without it. China, the world’s top fertilizer producer, has banned its exports. Russia, which is number two, is struggling to make it to world markets. “We need to get these fertilizers moving and we need to move them quickly,” he said. “Asian rice production is in a critical situation right now. The seeds are in the ground.” In Africa, 33 million small farms feed over 70% of the population and right now “we are a few billion dollars short of what we need for fertilizer.” He said Central and South America also faced drought and India was hit by heat and “It could go on and on,” he said. He said the July deal to ship Ukrainian grain from three Black Sea ports is a start, but “we have to get the grain moving, we have to get the fertilizer out there for everyone, and we have to end the wars.” Beasley said the United States has contributed an additional $5 billion for food security, and Germany, France and the European Union are also stepping up. But he called on the Gulf states to “step up more” with oil prices so high, particularly to help countries in their region such as Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. “We’re not talking about asking for a trillion dollars here,” Beasley said. “We’re just talking about asking your earnings for a few days to stabilize the world,” he said. The WFP chief said he also met with a group of billionaires on Wednesday night. He said he told them they had “a moral obligation” and “should care”. “Even if you don’t give it to me, even if you don’t give it to the World Food Program, get in the game. Get into the game of loving your neighbor and helping your neighbor,” Beasley said. “People are suffering and dying all over the world. When a child dies of hunger every five seconds, shame on us.”
