Food crisis refers to global food shortages, sharp declines in production, and excessive price increases, resulting in food panic and crisis. The food crisis corresponds to "food security", so what is "food security"?
At the first World Food Summit in November 1974, FAO first introduced the concept of food security, which was expressed as ensuring that anyone, at all times, had access to enough food for survival and health.
In April 1983, FAO made a second formulation of the concept of food security: ensuring that all people can buy and afford the basic food they need at all times.
In November 1996, the concept of food security was formulated for the third time: to enable all people to enjoy adequate food at all times and to live a healthy and vigorous life.
From these three definitions, we can know that food security must have an adequate and effective supply; Simply put, food security means having to have enough food and the ability of the population to be able to afford food prices.
Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, food security problems have occurred in many parts of the world, on the one hand, the weather has affected the reduction of grain production in some countries, on the other hand, the logistics caused by the epidemic and the rising oil prices have pushed up food prices, resulting in the inability of residents in some poor areas to buy sufficient food.
In 2022, the epidemic continues to develop rapidly in many countries in the world, but what is more worrying is that "the world is not peaceful". Due to the development of the situation in Ukraine, it is beyond the expectations of many people, and it is well known that Ukraine is a big food exporter, and grain production is affected, and it is very likely that it will continue to push up food prices.
Ukrainian agriculture is known as the "granary of Europe", with a territory of more than 600,000 square kilometers, with vast plains and endless black land. The fertile "black calcium soil belt", accounting for up to 40% of the total area of the global "black soil belt", has made Ukraine the world's second largest grain exporter, and the Black Sea region is known as the world's granary.
According to relevant data, half of Lebanon's wheat needs to be imported from Ukraine, with Yemen importing 22% of wheat from Ukraine, Egypt 14%, and Libya as high as 43%.
In 2021, Ukraine's barley, wheat, rye, corn, oilseed production accounted for more than 3% of the world's total, and Ukraine is the largest producer of sunflower seeds. Previously, Ukraine exported grain through the ports of Chernomosk, Mikorayev, Odessa, Kherson and Youzhny, exporting about 5-6 million tons of grain per month (4.5 million tons of corn, 1 million tons of wheat and 500,000 tons of barley), but these ports have now ceased to operate normally.
On the other hand, Russia is also an important food exporter in the world, and the data shows that Russia and Ukraine export 29% of wheat to the world, 19% of maize, and sunflower oil as much as 80%.
In 2021, China imported 29 percent of its corn and 26 percent of its wheat in Ukraine. In advance, the mainland approved the import of wheat from all of Russia into China. In addition, China has enough food and does not have to worry about food security at all.
Time will prove that the biggest impact of this crisis is not the stock market, gold, oil, but the price of food, after all, eating, living, eating, is the first. Whether the food crisis will return in 2022 can only wait and see, but we should indeed be more in awe of food, cherish food...