There are many causes of food shortages on Earth, but one is the most prevalent: armed conflict. This year, 20 countries or territories have been engulfed in violence or war, putting nearly 140 million people at risk of food insecurity. Hunger is a weapon of mass destruction that threatens global political instability.
Almost 300 million people in 60 countries – most of them in armed conflict – suffered from acute hunger last year, despite the fact that the world’s governments spent a total of more than $2.4 trillion on weapons, equipment and military personnel.
The rise in hunger is also due to disruptions in the fertilizer trade following the outbreak of war in Eastern Europe, which accelerated cost increases for farmers and consumers almost everywhere. Conflicts disrupted key supply chains in agriculture and the food system, spreading suffering beyond the borders directly affected.
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This vulnerability leads to conflict and instability. Therefore, efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger require strategies to maintain and strengthen smallholder farmers’ adaptive capacity to extreme weather events, as well as a determined commitment to restoring and sustaining peace.
It is time to see rural areas as places of opportunity and social progress. This requires appropriate institutional structures, a new generation of public policies for family farms and facilitating access to digital technologies and other advances so that farmers achieve better yields and incomes.
This is an excerpt. The original article can be found here
