According to the UN, hunger has become “widespread”. Radioactive capsule has been lost in Australia – the search is likely to be difficult

Climate change, the war in Ukraine, inflation: according to the World Food Program of the United Nations, the hunger crisis will not end this year either.

“With 349 million affected in 79 countries, hunger has become a major fire. About 900,000 of them are fighting for their survival,” Martin Frick, director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in Germany, told the German news agency. Crises such as Russia’s war against Ukraine, climate change or the dramatic price and debt development in poor countries have further fueled the hunger crisis.

In addition, fertilizer prices have risen 184 percent over the past two years, which could push global yields of wheat, rice, soybeans and corn down 2.4 percent this year. The calories lost this way could feed 282 million people, it said. “Food would then be scarce and unaffordable for even more people.” To prevent even more people from starving as a result, Frick believes more decisive countermeasures must be taken, for example through humanitarian aid.

The impact of the war against Ukraine on agriculture will also be discussed at the meeting of EU agriculture ministers next Monday. (aeg/sda/dpa)