Record food commodity prices are an ordeal by fire for some 45 poorer countries that rely heavily on food imports: the Maghreb, the non-oil Middle East, swaths of Africa, Bangladesh, or Afghanistan. The World Food Programme warned of \u201ccatastrophic\u201d scarcity for several hundred million people last November. The picture is worse today.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is going up vertically. The whole production chain for food is under pressure from every side<\/a>,\u201d said Abdolreza Abbassian, the ex-head of agro-markets at the UN\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organisation.<\/p>\n \u201cI have never seen anything like it in 30 years and I fear that prices are going to go much higher in the 2022-2023 season. The situation is just awful and at some point people are going to realise what may be coming. We\u2019re all going to have to tighten our belts, and the mood could get very nasty even in OECD countries like Britain<\/a>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Read it all<\/a> (registration or subscription).<\/p>\n "A billion of the world\u2019s poorest people will go even hungrier thanks to Putin\u2019s deranged misadventure, and some will starve. Our next moral mission is to help them" | Writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard https:\/\/t.co\/EldrZ5NhzV<\/a><\/p>\n — The Telegraph (@Telegraph) March 4, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n