In Short : The intertwining factors of climate change, extreme weather events, and conflict contribute to the exacerbation of a global food crisis. Climate change disrupts agricultural patterns, leading to unpredictable weather conditions, droughts, floods, and shifts in growing seasons. These changes, coupled with social and political conflicts, disrupt food production, distribution, and access, amplifying food insecurity worldwide. Addressing the interconnected challenges of climate change, extreme weather, and conflict is crucial for building resilience in food systems and ensuring global food security.
In Detail :
- Global food insecurity has risen substantially since pre-pandemic times, exacerbated by extreme weather, climate change, war and conflict.
- What the U.N. World Food Program calls “a hunger crisis of unprecedented proportions” plays out differently around the world.
- In this story, three of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows detail the local situation in their region – from rising inflation and flooding in Nigeria to diminished local food production in Suriname and the environmental and socioeconomic effects of commercial food production in Brazil.
- “If we do not redouble and better target our efforts, our goal of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030 will remain out of reach,” write the authors of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2023 report on global food security and nutrition.
- In the past year, international agencies worldwide have continued to sound an alarm over surges in food insecurity that are plunging millions of people into extreme hunger, malnutrition and threats to their overall health. The U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) calls it “a hunger crisis of unprecedented proportions.”
This worrying trend has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate shocks and conflicts including the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2023 report on global food security and nutrition — released in July, months before the conflict in Gaza — some 735 million people faced hunger in 2022, an increase of 122 million people compared with 2019 pre-pandemic levels. The Caribbean, Western Asia and all subregions of Africa experienced the most alarming increases in these hunger levels. Worldwide, more than 3.1 billion people could not afford a healthy diet, according to the report. That’s 42% of the world’s population, and a significant increase over pre-COVID levels.
Since the Russia-Ukraine crisis began in February 2022, many countries that had relied substantially on Ukrainian grains for years have since borne the brunt of food price inflation due to significant supply shortfalls. Russia is a major exporter of wheat, and Ukraine is a significant producer of corn; prices for both crops spiked with the Russian invasion, and the destruction of ports sent further shocks throughout global markets. The war prompted other countries producing large amounts of staple foods to either restrict or ban their exports to satisfy domestic demands.
Compounding all of this, extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts and floods, are also negatively affecting food production globally. By far, 2023 was the hottest year on record for Planet Earth. Plus, 2023 saw the return of El Niño, the ocean climate pattern characterized by a rise in sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific that tends to shift weather worldwide, often causing floods, droughts and storms that disrupt agriculture and fishing sectors and lead to higher prices for food.
This comes on the heels of devastating floods in 2022 in countries such as Pakistan and Nigeria, among others, that led to significant losses of staple crops. Likewise, record-breaking heat waves recorded in southern Europe severely damaged summer crops and dairy products.
Globally, as the impacts of climate change become increasingly evident, food security continues to erode on all fronts: availability, access, utilization and stability. With rising temperatures and projected levels of atmospheric CO2 in the upcoming years, we can expect more frequent extreme weather events, diminished nutritional value in staple foods, smaller harvests and an uptick in food prices.
All of this poses a heightened threat to global food security, especially for the world’s most vulnerable populations. Despite contributing the least to greenhouse gas emissions, Global South countries, already grappling with food insecurity, bear the burden of these changes. In contrast, countries in the Global North shoulder the responsibility for 92% of excess global CO2 emissions.
However, each Global South country will navigate this crisis uniquely.
The following article, reported collectively by Mongabay fellows, delves into the complexities of three Global South nations, offering a comparative inquiry of their distinct experiences with this ongoing global food insecurity crisis. In Nigeria, floods wreak havoc on agrarian communities; Suriname faces the challenge of low food production; and Brazil contends with the stark contrast between its extensive food production and the inequitable distribution of wealth.
The nuances within each country’s experience illustrate how this critical global issue — feeding the planet — requires solutions tailored to community needs at the local level.
NIGERIA
During the 2022 planting season, between August and October, Nigeria witnessed one of its worst floods in a decade. According to Nigerian authorities, more than 600 people died and more than 1.4 million people were displaced. Although the fatalities recorded in 2023 were far fewer than in the previous year, the crisis continued.
The back-to-back impacts of these floods present new challenges for farmers, who have barely been able to recover from the shocks of 2022.
In particular, agrarian communities farming major staples such as rice, maize and cowpeas were the worst hit, and the impact on local food security is evident on the country’s state of food sovereignty.
While many Nigerians (farmers and business owners ) affected by the 2022 floods are still struggling, they simultaneously have to contend with skyward inflationary pressures and lingering hardships orchestrated by the removal of fuel subsidies by President Bola Tinubu, elected in 2023. On May 29, during his inauguration and his first address to Nigerians as president, Tinubu announced the change. He explained that the funds would be channeled toward the development of other basic amenities and infrastructure across the country.
Tinubu’s announcement led to a significant spike in the price of fuel nationwide and, in turn, an astronomical jump in transportation costs. This development has caused financial distress for many Nigerians who are now having to pay more for goods and services amid dwindling income.
In July 2023, the government consequently declared an immediate state of emergency centered on food insecurity in an effort to ameliorate the diminished food supply chain.
The government’s declaration further underscored predictions by international organizations that more than 25 million Nigerians could face acute hunger at the peak of the lean season as the Nigerian Meteorological Agency warned of further flooding.
According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s inflation rate in January had risen to 29.9% over the previous year. For food, it was even worse: 35.4%.
Effects on farmers & markets
In the midst of this, the 2023 planting season started with mixed feelings for many Nigerian farmers. Aside from the existential threats of insecurity disrupting food production across rural settlements of major food producing states, in order to keep food production afloat, farmers have had to contend with the rising costs of farm inputs due to inflation and fluctuating weather patterns.
Nigeria has two distinct seasons — rainy (April through October) and dry (November through March). Most crops are planted during the rainy season when there is typically an abundance of water from rainfall. Although many farmers in the northern part of the country, which is characterized by little rainfall, use irrigation to counteract low water supply.
But the rising costs of farm products and transportation have exacerbated the constraints trailing food availability, accessibility and affordability.
“Rising inflation affected farming in a lot of ways. As expected since the devaluation of the naira, the cost of farming inputs has skyrocketed,” says Abubakar Sadiq, who grows maize and other grains in Kaduna state.
The farmer told Mongabay that in the 2023 season, most farmers planted their crops but could not afford to purchase adequate inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides.
Based on this, Sadiq said many of their crops were left unattended, resulting in low output. As a farmer who used to grow at least 100 bags of 100 kilograms (220 pounds) each of maize, 250 bags of rice and 10 bags of cowpeas in previous years, he could only cultivate 30, 50 and 12 bags, respectively, of the aforementioned food crops in 2023 due to the high costs of production.
Most farmers, he said, “have to cut down on the amount of land they are used to cultivating; they have to cultivate what they can take care of,” he said.
For his part, Esonu Udeala, who farms orange-fleshed sweet potatoes along Kubwa Road in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, described the suffering he is facing. “It’s been terrible. Transport has gone up. It now takes me a minimum of 6,170 naira [$4 for 10 liters or 2.6 gallons of fuel] to go to my farm in Uke, Nasarawa state. This week, I spent 25,000 naira [$16.50] fueling my car,” the farmer said.
He lamented that while input costs had increased, the cost of farm labor went up from 2,000 naira ($1.32) to 3,000 naira ($1.98) and that with feeding, it would take 3,700 naira ($2.44) to hire a laborer.
“The effect is that farm products have to sell at higher prices,” the farmer said, adding that as people’s purchasing power has drastically been reduced, sales are slow. Udeala explained that not many farmers are able to farm as much as they would have wanted this year, due to inflation.
“Even me, I’m looking for financial support. If I get assistance of about 5 million naira [$3,300], I will secure 2 hectares [4.9 acres] in a fenced farm where I can install a mini-irrigation facility and do dry season farming,” he said.
Ongoing efforts
The declaration of a state of emergency by the government is seen as part of an aggressive push to reduce hunger, boost agricultural productivity and reduce the high prices of major staple foods in Nigeria.
In a statement announcing the declaration, the government also made public some of its short, medium and long-term strategies toward addressing the challenges of food affordability and accessibility.
Some of the specific steps to be taken by the government in implementing the state of emergency include the release of fertilizers and grains to farmers and households and protecting “farms and the farmers so that farmers can return to the farmlands without fear of attacks.”
To implement this, the federal government announced a 5 billion naira ($3.3 million) “palliative” payment for each state of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory, to cushion the impact of the removal of the petrol subsidies. The impact of this policy is yet to be felt.
Reacting to the government’s promises to farmers, Udeala said, “Stories never yield results.”
“The farming season for most root crops is gradually running out. Any intervention that doesn’t get to the real farmers this month will not be impactful,” the farmer told Mongabay in an interview.
He said the government had failed on other promises and queried to whom the government planned to give its support. “Who are they giving the support? Political farmer association leaders? At the end, nothing is achieved except deceptive showcases,” Udeala said.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Environment and other relevant agencies have assured Nigerians that efforts are underway to ensure the impact of overflowing water is properly mitigated.