With Ukraine farmers on frontlines, U.N. food chief warns of ‘devastation’
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. meals chief warned on Tuesday that the struggle in Ukraine was threatening to devastate the World Meals Programme’s efforts to feed some 125 million individuals globally as a result of Ukraine had gone “from the breadbasket of the world to breadlines.”
“It isn’t simply decimating dynamically Ukraine and the area, however it’ll have international context influence past something we have seen since World Struggle Two,” WFP Government Director David Beasley advised the 15-member United Nations Safety Council.
Beasley stated 50% of the grain purchased by the WFP, the food-assistance department of the United Nations, comes from Ukraine, “so you possibly can solely assume the devastation that that is going to have on our operations alone.”
“The farmers are on the frontlines,” he stated.
Beasley added that the disaster was compounded by an absence of fertilizer merchandise coming from Belarus and Russia.
“If you happen to do not put fertilizer on the crops, your yield will likely be no less than 50% diminished. So we’re what could possibly be a disaster on high of a disaster within the months forward,” he advised the council.
Earlier than Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, Beasley stated the WFP was already fighting excessive gas and meals costs and transport prices that was forcing it to chop rations for hundreds of thousands of individuals in locations like Yemen.
Beasley warned if the battle in Ukraine was not ended, “the world pays a mighty worth and the very last thing we need to be doing because the World Meals Programme is taking meals from hungry kids to provide to ravenous kids.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia rejected accusations that Moscow’s actions in Ukraine had induced the “severe turbulence” within the international meals market, as an alternative blaming Western sanctions on Russia.
Russia calls its invasion a “particular army operation” that goals to destroy Ukraine’s army infrastructure. The 193-member U.N. Normal Meeting has overwhelmingly deplored Russia’s “aggression” and demanded it withdraw its troops.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman advised the council sanctions weren’t fueling the worldwide meals disaster.
“The accountability for waging struggle on Ukraine – and for the struggle’s results on international meals safety – falls solely on President Putin,” Sherman stated.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Enhancing by Karishma Singh)
