Cindy McCain: Ukraine’s war ‘forces us to take from the hungry to feed the hungry’

As the Russian invasion affects Ukraine’s production of wheat, corn and other major exports, Cindy McCain, the US ambassador to the United Nations food and agriculture agencies, warned on Monday that millions in the Middle East and Africa could soon be on the brink of starvation. .

“Putin’s war forces us to take from the hungry to feed the hungry,” McCain said. Monday said on C-SPAN. “Rising prices are forcing difficult decisions to cut food rations in some of the world’s most desperate humanitarian crises, including Afghanistan and Yemen.”

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that up to 13 million people worldwide may be food insecure as a result of the February invasion. More than 50 countries depend on Russia and Ukraine to produce about 30 percent of their wheat supplies.

Ukraine is also a major wheat supplier to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), which feeds 138 million people in more than 80 countries. Including four “hunger hotspots”: Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.

“Russia is bombing one of the world’s major breadbaskets,” McCain said of Ukraine. “This war will exacerbate global food insecurity by interfering with the upcoming planting season and moving food within the country.”

The World Food Program estimates that Ukraine’s grain supply feeds 400 million people in a typical year, but that number is set to fall sharply because of the war, the US Department of Agriculture has warned.

According to estimates by the Ministry of AgricultureRussia is likely to increase its annual wheat exports by 1 million tons, while Ukraine is likely to reduce its wheat exports by the same amount. With the country’s ports on the Black Sea closed, some Ukrainian farmers may be growing crops better suited for domestic consumption rather than export.

Dr. Jim Barnhart, Assistant Administrator in the US Agency for International Development’s Office of Resilience and Food Security, told reporters Tuesday that global food insecurity was an imminent crisis long before Russia invaded Ukraine.

The war has increased existing roadblocks in the food supply chain, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing humanitarian crises and rising fertilizer prices around the world. Barnhart, who recently returned from Senegal and Niger, warned of “food riots” in at least 14 African countries during the last global food crisis from 2007 to 2008.

Barnhart said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” “Experience has shown that $1 invested in resilience efforts…can save up to $3 in humanitarian assistance in the future, so all of this helps ensure that major shocks like COVID-19, climate change and conflict do not return families to poverty and ill health.” nutrition “.

McCain said the UN aims to “feed more with less” by providing vulnerable populations with the most nutritious foods. She pointed out that infants and children are the first affected in most humanitarian crises, adding that the World Food Program is distributing packages of high-protein food paste to support children in areas suffering from hunger.

“These are nutrients that we take for granted here in the United States because of course our kids get them,” McCain said. “These children cannot survive on wheat and grain alone.”