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Record harvests but millions go hungry · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It looks like the perfect storm three crises. The war
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine still hangs over one of the world's major
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: grain exporting regions. The war involving Iran has disrupted energy
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: shipping and fertilizer markets, and a strong El Nino is developing,
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  Speaker 1: threatening drought in some places and a washout in others.
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  Speaker 1: Put those together and a new global hunger spike may
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  Speaker 1: seem inevitable, but it has not happened, at least not yet.
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  Speaker 1: Food prices are nearly twenty percent below their twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: two peak. That doesn't mean food is cheap. Prices are
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: still well above pre pandemic levels. International food prices rose
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  Speaker 1: after the Homus disruption, but nowhere near as dramatically as
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, and by June they've begun easing again.
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  Speaker 2: Why we are seeing improvements in agricultural productivity, for example
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  Speaker 2: in India across Latin America. These have helped sustain food
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  Speaker 2: production and reduce under nourishment, and this is balancing some
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  Speaker 2: of the localized impacts of conflicts.
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  Speaker 1: The world brought in the biggest grain harvest in history
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  Speaker 1: last year. This year's is expected to be slightly smaller,
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  Speaker 1: at just under three billion tons, but still the second
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  Speaker 1: largest ever, and the world has a buffer. Global serial
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  Speaker 1: stocks a forecast to reach almost nine hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 1: eight million tons. The stock to use ratio, which measures
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  Speaker 1: how much food is left over, is thirty two percent,
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  Speaker 1: near record levels. Grain has kept moving. Not only has
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  Speaker 1: Ukraine managed to keep exporting even when under fire, but
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  Speaker 1: prices have actually fallen because they've exported so much. As
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: for Al Nino, it's expected to impact harvests due to
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  Speaker 1: extreme weather, so the prices of some foods will go
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: up as a result. When weather damage remains regional, other
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  Speaker 1: major producers can often compensate, though that becomes harder if
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  Speaker 1: several growing regions are hit simultaneously or if governments restrict exports.
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  Speaker 1: But all that does not mean hunger is under control.
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  Speaker 1: The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization says two hundred and
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  Speaker 1: sixty six million people are facing acute hunger. That number
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  Speaker 1: has stayed fairly stable.
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  Speaker 3: So the issue is not of availability, the issues of distribution.
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  Speaker 3: When we refer to calories, so we have enough calories
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  Speaker 3: in the world produced to feed everybody. The problem means
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  Speaker 3: that those calories are not distributed in the same way
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  Speaker 3: across the world, and that's the challenge.
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  Speaker 1: The worst hunger is, of course, where those global grain
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  Speaker 1: supplies cannot reach just ten countries accounted for two thirds
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  Speaker 1: of the people facing acute hunger, and the food crisis
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  Speaker 1: country is assessed by the UN.
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  Speaker 2: War is destroying local food sources, it's displacing millions of people,
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  Speaker 2: it's damaging infrastructure and severely restricts humanitarian access. And in
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  Speaker 2: some hotspots, such as Sudan and Gaza, for example, we
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  Speaker 2: are seeing that hunger is increasingly being used as a weapon.
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  Speaker 1: Of for conflict in places like Gaza and Soudan. Can
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  Speaker 1: block markets and access to humanitarian assistance. Displacement can destroy
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  Speaker 1: incomes and local production, meaning global warehouses can be full
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  Speaker 1: while individual families have nothing to eat. And while the
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  Speaker 1: geopolitical conflicts have not blocked global supplies yet, there's a
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  Speaker 1: risk they could spin out of control. Just take one risk,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: hiding and playing sight. Fertilizer, Around a third of the
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  Speaker 1: global seaborn fertilizer trade passes through the strait of horm moos.
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  Speaker 1: Some farmers are paying substantially more, delaying purchases or switching
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  Speaker 1: to crops that require less fertilizer. If they ultimately apply,
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  Speaker 1: less yields could suffer in the next harvest.
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  Speaker 3: So the compound effect of a significant increase on all
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  Speaker 3: the input prices that are needed for agriculture because of
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  Speaker 3: the strait of Foremos's closure, we're twenty to thirty two
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  Speaker 3: percent of the inputs come from Plus a potential stress
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  Speaker 3: of extreme temperatures or flooding could create a very complex
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  Speaker 3: situation by the end of the year and next year.
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  Speaker 1: So the buffers held this time. Record harvests, deep stockpiles,
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  Speaker 1: and rerouted trade have stopped a triple crisis from becoming
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  Speaker 1: a global food shock. The latest UN figures show that
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  Speaker 1: global hunger was actually falling before these new shocks fully arrived,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: but the effect is delayed. The UN also estimates that
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  Speaker 1: the Middle East conflict alone could leave millions more people
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  Speaker 1: hungry by twenty thirty, and that projection does not yet
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: include the effects of Al Nino. The perfect storm has
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  Speaker 1: not yet produced a global food shock, but it has
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  Speaker 1: not passed either. If the oil price leaps again and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: stays high due to the conflict in Iran, if grain
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  Speaker 1: exports from Ukraine are successfully blockaded, if al Ninio bites
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  Speaker 1: harder into next year's crops while farmers are already planting less.
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  Speaker 1: Or if all those happened at once once, that we
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  Speaker 1: could be facing a spike in global hunger. But don't forget.
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  Speaker 1: Regardless of those shocks, for millions of people, especially in
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  Speaker 1: conflict zones, the food crisis never went away.