In the clinical language of emergency food relief, the desperate daily reality of hunger is limited to numbers on a scale of one to five. Those who have some difficulty feeding or meeting basic food needs are counted as having a first- or second-degree crisis. Widespread malnutrition is level three or four. It is in the last group of countries where international aid organizations participate. This numbered system, used around the world to categorize food insecurity, is designed to warn and hopefully prevent a level five or famine disaster. Level five, in what is called Integrated Phase Classification, is a measure intended only for the most dire situations – where extreme malnutrition, hunger and eventually death become commonplace. But as the war in Ukraine continues, it is a measure that is likely to be observed by more and more countries and with frightening frequency. Among the catastrophic consequences of the Russian invasion was the disaster that occurred in the world food supply. With Ukraine and Russia – both major food producers – suddenly cut off from world markets, large sections of the world’s population have been cut off from basic foodstuffs. Food prices around the world have skyrocketed. In recent weeks, some of the world’s most important organizations – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Food Program (WFP) and the World Bank – have been sounding the alarm for the crisis. And it is only expected to get worse. About 44 million people worldwide, according to the WFP, are currently on the brink of starvation level five. In the very proud Ukrainian rural communities of the meadows, the Russian war causes sadness and guilt The impact could be catastrophic: widespread mortality, catastrophic consequences for world health in a world still plagued by a pandemic and possible disruptions of mass migration and political unrest. “I always think about who is most affected and who is most vulnerable,” said Warren Dodd, a professor of global health at the University of Waterloo, about the impact of such a crisis in Canada. “I do not think we should all be equally worried.” But just because this country is likely to escape the worst, does not mean we can tolerate complacency, he said. As Canada tries to find a way to help, it leads to a bigger, more fundamental question: What role can we play in fixing a global food system that seems to be increasingly deteriorating?

Another term borrowed from the world of food aid is “The Three Cs”. This is how humanitarian organizations have described the current situation, which unfolds after years of other crises: COVID, climate change and now, the aftermath of war. The worsening crisis is that many of the countries that depend most on Ukraine and Russia for food are among the poorest in the world. Among them, Ukraine and Russia produce about a quarter of world wheat exports and are major suppliers of other basic cereals and oils. About 50 countries – many of them in the Middle East and Africa – rely on the region for food. About 80 percent of Lebanon’s wheat comes from Ukraine. In the Middle East country, food costs have risen by more than 300 percent in the past year. Yemen, which is already facing a third-level food security crisis, imports 97 percent of its cereals – most of it from Ukraine and Russia. The region also produces other basic agricultural products, such as fertilizers, increasing the cost of a critical inflow for farmers around the world. “What we are seeing is another shock over a very fragile system,” said Andy Harrington, chief executive of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFB), a worldwide food aid charity. Organizations including the CFB have already felt its impact. In Syria and Lebanon, they have seen their purchasing power decline dramatically, with prices rising by up to 35 percent over the past two months. In Ethiopia, a food basket that used to cost $ 38 three years ago now costs $ 60. “To whom do we go and say, ‘Sorry, we can not give you the same portions we could have given you last month?’ asked Mr. Harrington. “We are talking about families that are in intense hunger and starvation.” The World Food Program predicts that if the war continues after the end of April, an additional 47 million people will face acute hunger. That’s over 276 million who are already in this predicament. At first glance, Canada’s ability to help may seem simple. As a major producer of many of the same crops now facing shortages – wheat, oilseeds and fertilizers – Canadian farmers have faced calls to increase production to help alleviate shortages. But that could complicate matters further, experts say. It is a fact that the CFB can confirm. The Winnipeg-based charity, founded in the 1980s, started with a simple idea: Canadian farmers had overgrown crops and were looking for ways to share those crops. But after decades of sending food, chartering tankers to transport grain and other products around the world, they realized the flaws of this system. “It was not the most effective way to do things,” Mr Harrington said. Aside from the logistical challenges, Canadian crops were often unsuitable for local communities. And often, the influx of imported products would have a negative impact on local industries. “We started disappearing local businesses as a result of the sudden rejection of our grain,” he said. There is also the issue of timing. Most planting decisions on Canadian farms for the year – decisions that took months – have been finalized for some time. Instead, the best approach to immediate disaster is funding, say humanitarian organizations. Charities such as the CFB have called on the Canadian government to increase funding for aid. They also call for this funding to be linked to future food inflation. Donations also help, said Julie Marshall, Canada’s spokeswoman for the World Food Program. “[Cash] is more efficient and effective. “It just is,” he said. “Very often it can cost as much to send food as the food itself. So let’s buy it locally. ” But this is only immediate destruction.

For Lenore Newman, the timeline begins in 2019. It was then that fires in Australia destroyed crops and killed more than a billion animals. “Since then, there has not been a time when our food system has not been in crisis,” said Professor Newman, director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at Fraser Valley University. And with each crisis, he said, global food systems collapsed and then collapsed. In 2020, there was a pandemic, which led to widespread lockdowns, labor shortages and broken supply chains. In Canada, this was quickly followed by the “heat dome” in British Columbia and catastrophic floods – both of which destroyed farms and wreaked havoc on transport corridors. Many of these supply chains are still wrapped up. That, he said, begs the question: Why would an otherwise healthy system have such difficulties? For Professor Newman, the answer requires a deeper examination. Climate change, he said, has made it clear that our existing systems are no longer viable. The fundamental assumptions on which our food system is based – globalization, large supply chains and cheap labor – no longer make sense. “We must at least begin to consider that the age of globalization is in decline, at least in terms of food,” he said. How Canada’s fragile food supply chain is being disrupted Countries like Canada, he said, need to focus on smaller supply chains. In local production and regional, intensive agriculture. “This is a shocking change of era.” Professor Newman says this will require technology: speeding up plans for a shift to indoor agriculture. Instead of importing fruits and vegetables from California and Mexico, he said, we should build greenhouses and vertical farms that can feed communities across the country. Making these changes locally can help the global system, he said. “If we can make technology work under our conditions, which are very harsh, they will work almost everywhere. We can export this know-how to the whole world “. Teams like the CFB are already working to support small farmers worldwide. In developing countries in Africa and Asia, CFB works with small farmers to develop climate-resistant practices and diversify local food systems. “This is the ultimate goal,” said Professor Dodd at the University of Waterloo. “Canada to support not only emergency food and humanitarian aid; creating more sustainable local food systems “.

Another word that often appears in discussions about the current food crisis with humanitarian organizations: inequality. For the past several months, Evan Fraser has been using images of political unrest in the Middle East a decade ago to illustrate the role that inequality plays in the current crisis – and the possible consequences of ignoring such inequalities. As a wave of unrest erupted in Tunisia in 2010, sweeping the region into what would become known as the Arab Spring, it was bread prices that initially dragged protesters into the streets. As a result, the unrest became synonymous with images of protesters holding baguettes, ais and kesra. In his studies of civil unrest, Professor Fraser found that over and over again, there were similar conditions: political instability and extreme inequality – often symbolized …