Policy seminars: As global food prices rise, important new data addresses the affordability of healthy diets
High food price inflation—driven by disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, climate shocks, and the war in Ukraine—has made the affordability of food and food insecurity top global concerns. Even before the current rise in prices, 3.1 billion people, about 40% of the global population, could not afford a healthy diet, according to the United Nation’s 2022 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report.
What will happen to Ukrainian grains? An overview of the current situation, available options and likely impacts on food prices and food security
The inability of Ukraine to export from its Black Sea ports has sharply reduced grain shipments from one of the breadbaskets of the world, sending shockwaves through international food markets and sparking global food security concerns. While some grain has moved out of the country on alternative routes, export volumes are less than half of their normal levels, and the costs of shipping have increased significantly.
FAO Food Price Index experienced a slight decline following recent highs
In May, the FAO Food Price Index declined by 0.6 percent from the previous month, driven by the drop in vegetable oils, sugar and dairy prices, while meat and cereal prices rose. The Index is still 22.8 percent above May 2021 levels.
Are healthy diets affordable? Using new data on retail prices and diet costs to guide agricultural and food policy
New Food Prices for Nutrition data in the SOFI 2022 report launched on July 6th uses retail food prices to compute diet costs and the number of people who cannot afford a healthy diet globally. Underlying costs by food group will be published simultaneously on a new Food Prices for Nutrition DataHub hosted at the World Bank, and subnational data are being used for a wide range of in-country research across Africa and Asia.
MC12: How to make the WTO relevant in the middle of a food price crisis
The World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial Conference (WTO MC12) takes place June 12-15 in Geneva—two years after the pandemic forced members to postpone its original schedule. In those two years, the world has changed and the importance of multilateral approaches to tackle international trade issues has become even more acute.
Can the G7 be a force for good in the current global food security crisis?
The Group of Seven wealthy nations (G7), currently led by the German presidency, has put a welcome focus on the global food insecurity and nutrition crisis unleashed by the war in Ukraine, with the most severe impacts falling on vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The two May G7 meetings produced four separate communiqués, each of them dozens of pages long (the development ministers communiqué alone was 23 pages!) and a G7-led Global Alliance for Food Security was announced.
AMIS Calls for Global Coordination, Humanitarian Aid to Prevent Global Food Crisis
With the war in Ukraine continuing to disrupt global food markets and contribute to rising and volatile food prices, international policymakers are calling for coordination and humanitarian aid to prevent the situation from escalating into further food crisis.
Irrigation Investment Policy: Does Scale Matter?
Irrigation has contributed to increased food production, lower food prices, higher rural employment, and overall agricultural and economic growth. It has been a key component of agricultural intensification and transformation in Asia and has the potential to take on the same role in Sub-Saharan Africa.
One of the world’s worst economic collapses, now compounded by the Ukraine crisis: What’s next for Lebanon?
High food prices and supply disruptions triggered by the Ukraine war are hitting Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries like Egypt, Sudan, and Yemen hard, partly due their heavy dependence on wheat imports. But in the region, Lebanon—already in the midst of one of the world’s worst economic collapses since the 1850s—is uniquely vulnerable to food security impacts from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
A recent World Bank report calls Lebanon’s current crisis “The Great Denial”—referring to an ongoing breakdown of government services, civil society, and the economy.
The impact of the Ukraine crisis on the global vegetable oil market
The war in Ukraine has pushed prices of agricultural products to historically high levels, and concerns about global food security occupy headlines and world leaders’ minds, as demonstrated by recent IMF and World Bank meetings. So far, much of the attention has focused on grains, particularly wheat—because of its importance in diets, and the predicament of countries where wheat accounts for a large share of calories consumed, is largely imported, and is dominated by supplies from the Black Sea.