The price of grain has already exceeded the cost of the same commodity at the beginning of the Arab Spring in 2011 and the 2007-2008 food riots, the UN warns.
Russia and Ukraine, at war since February 24, are the main exporters of wheat.
This conflict is blocking agricultural production in these two Eastern European countries.
With this in mind, the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, is concerned about the situation of the global food systems.
“We must do everything possible to avoid a storm of famine and a collapse of the global food system,” Guterres said Monday at a press briefing in New York.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) global food price index is at its highest level ever recorded, Guterres said.
He also pointed out that 45 African and least developed countries import at least one third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia.
Similarly, he added, 18 of these countries import at least 50 percent.
This includes countries such as Burkina Faso, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
On March 11, FAO argued that the Ukrainian conflict could lead to a sudden reduction in wheat exports, with serious consequences for more than 35 percent of the world’s population.
TE/ard/lb/as/APA