23 January 2024
By: Chris Burgess
The instability caused by widespread famine in poorer countries is becoming an increasingly significant problem for Europe, as revealed in a panel discussion during the Green Week trade fair in Berlin.
Serious concern prevails in Europe about the role climate change and famine play in the migration of people to First World countries – and about the social and political upheaval migration causes.
“Migration has now become an issue that the right-wing uses to advance their political agenda,” said Cem Özdemir, the German agriculture minister, during a panel discussion at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture.
“It threatens to destabilise our democracy and it is crucial that we keep people in their country of origin with what we describe as ‘agricultural diplomacy’. We simply need to get Africa to be more productive in agriculture.”
Sarah Menker from Ethiopia, CEO of Gro Intelligence – a New York-based company that uses artificial intelligence to advise private companies and governments on where the future impact of food shortages and climate change will be felt – joined the discussion digitally. She demonstrated through modelling how Africa’s food security is hampered by the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and how the disruption of shipping through the Suez Canal also poses a severe threat.
“Today, there are 122 million more hungry people in the world than in 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, repeated weather shocks and conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine,” she said.
Josefa Sacko from Angola, the commissioner for agriculture at the African Union, agreed with this point as she pointed out how the ongoing conflict in the Horn of Africaq is fuelled by food insecurity.
Famine is a security issue
Paul Rushton, an official in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) department for climate and energy security and emerging security issues, described how climate change and food security have gradually become as significant for the alliance as military threats.
“Climate change makes the world a more dangerous place. Nato troops are increasingly used for humanitarian missions – whether it is to combat wildfires, as in southern Europe, or to assist with severe droughts in Mediterranean countries. Our troops in Iraq are also increasingly plagued by ‘black flag days’, where intense heat makes it impossible to deploy them.”
Martin Frick, head of the World Food Programme office in Berlin, described how the “explosion of hunger” in the world is fuelled by higher food prices, shipping costs and the “staggering proliferation” of weapons. “When things go wrong somewhere in the world, severe hunger is always involved. We simply can no longer just distribute emergency aid. We need systematic solutions to these problems.”
Janet Maro, CEO of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania, described a possible solution. In Tanzania, conflict between Masai herders and crop farmers has been resolved by offering crop residues as grazing to the herders, while crop farmers have accepted Masai dung as fertiliser.
“It has mutual benefits and brought peace,” Maro said. “People in Africa simply do not have the money for expensive inputs. It is in everyone’s best interest to get nature to work for everyone.”
