Good morning.
After weeks of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, the first shipment of grain, carrying 26,000 tonnes of corn, left the port of Odesa yesterday. While it is a significant move, the deal is still in a precarious state. The countries refuse to engage directly with each other and Russia has been clear that this is about testing the waters as opposed to freeing the port for exports altogether.
The country’s blockade in Ukraine has led to a global grain shortage that has caused price rises and left millions of people at risk of acute hunger. As of right now, 22m tonnes of grain reportedly still need to be shipped from Ukraine.
The grain shortage is just one part of a larger global food crisis, which has caused more deaths from hunger during the pandemic than Covid-19. To understand why so many people are going hungry when there’s plenty of food, I spoke to John Vidal, author of McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial and a former environment editor at the Guardian. First though, the headlines.
Five big stories
Afghanistan | The United States killed the top al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike last month, Joe Biden has said.
Labour | The shadow levelling up secretary, Lisa Nandy, visited striking workers from BT and Openreach in her constituency, despite leader Keir Starmer banning Labour frontbenchers from joining picket lines.
Music | Beyoncé will remove an ableist term from a song in her new album, Renaissance. The song Heated used an offensive term for spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy.
Politics | The former Tory leadership contender Penny Mourdant has backed Liz Truss to be the next prime minister. The endorsement is a significant blow to Rishi Sunak’s campaign.
Climate | An international team of climate scientists has said the dangers of human extinction are “dangerously underexplored”. Their analysis has been reviewed by dozens of scientists and warns that even modest levels of warming could have catastrophic consequences.
In depth: Famine is growing – can it be stopped?
The global food system is complex and fragile – and the impacts when it fails are deadly. Despite more than enough food being produced to feed the world, there has been a six-fold increase in the number of people living in famine-like conditions since 2020. How has this happened?
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1 A hunger crisis
The war in Ukraine, the pandemic, climate change and spiralling inflation rates have converged to create an unprecedented global food crisis. However, the underlying problem of food insecurity is not new. Between 2005 to 2014 the number of undernourished people fell from 811 million to 607 million. But for the last seven years hunger has been on the rise. By 2020, 811 million were undernourished. This year is likely to be even worse.
However, Vidal rejects the framing of this as a crisis of food, of which there is plenty. In fact, food production has been rising steadily for decades. “It’s really a crisis of poverty and distribution – people cannot afford to buy food that is there,” he says.
Another big part of the problem is the kinds of food that are being prioritised: “So much land is devoted to growing crops for animals, especially cows, and that takes away land that can be used to provide ordinary people with grains or rice, for instance.”
These are a recurring problem, caused by systemic issues in the global food industry, which have been exacerbated by recent crises. Food production is dominated by rich countries that give massive subsidies to the agricultural sector to produce food in certain parts of the world. These countries then export their surplus to poor countries, which undermines their domestic food industry. “Most farmers in low income countries have little to no support and they simply cannot compete with the cheap food that comes in from the US and Europe,” Vidal says.
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2 The impact of war
This current crisis is different because the circumstances are different. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected certain parts of the world far more than it has others. “There will be specific hotspots of crisis,” Vidal says. “Grain that would normally come from Russia and Ukraine has not been available in any large quantities, which has led to individual shortages for the countries that usually depend on it, like Egypt.”
The war has also caused oil prices to surge, which has a knock-on effect on agriculture. “Most food is grown in a certain way, using heavy synthetic fertiliser, all of which depend on oil or gas. I’ve been talking to people in Malawi, where they traditionally grow maize, and fertiliser prices have tripled in the last six months, so they will be able to grow far less next year.”
Whether or not an accord is reached in eastern Europe, the global food crisis will stretch into 2023. And there’s a significant chance it could get worse as people won’t be able to afford to grow food because of unstable oil prices.
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3 What next
Vidal laid out two plausible futures: “Pessimistically, this could become a permanent crisis. Or, optimistically, we could learn how to grow food sustainably, shifting the focus to feeding people, as opposed to animals.”
So optimism rests on restructuring the food system to be fairer and more equitable – no easy task when four corporations control 75-90% of the global grain trade. To properly tackle the crisis of hunger, the global food industry has to be diversified so poorer countries aren’t held hostage by a few massive companies and can rely on their own food supplies to feed their people. And solving that problem could take even longer than bringing peace to Ukraine.
What else we’ve been reading
Stuart Heritage spoke with the producers of a new Netflix documentary, Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99, about how the music festival that once symbolised peace and love descended into chaos and violence. Nimo
The Atlantic’s new digital archive stretches back 165 years, and is a treasure trove of essays and reportage at flashpoints in history: from Rachel Carson on the oceans in 1937 and WH Auden’s bracing 1939 poem Crisis, published the day Germany invaded Poland, to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ watershed 2014 article about reparations for slavery. Craille Maguire Gillies, production editor, newsletters
Allison P Davis’s compelling reflections on a decade of Tinder for the Cut (£) offers both a short history of dating apps and a highly personal look at the human cost of 10 years of swiping. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
In this incisive article, Zoe Williams unpacks why, during a cost of living crisis, both Tory leadership candidates have decided to posture about trans people in their campaigns. Nimo
Ammar Kalia’s warm interview with Sanjeev Bhaskar delves into the impact of TV hits like Goodness Gracious Me and the contribution of British Asians to the arts. Hannah
Sport
Commonwealth Games | Australia’s Emma McKeon won her 12th Commonwealth gold in the 50m butterfly, making her the Games’ most successful swimmer. Five-time Olympic champion Laura Kenny took gold for England in the women’s 10km scratch race, her first Commonwealth Games title in eight years.
Football | Chelsea is close to signing Brighton left-back Marc Cucurella for £50m. Cucurella was also a target for Manchester City, but the football club was reluctant to meet his asking price.
Cricket | Former New Zealand Test player Heath Davis has become the country’s first cricket player to come out as gay.
The front pages
The Guardian this morning leads with “‘Everyone is buzzing. Lionesses’ victory echoes around the nation”. The jubilant champions parade across most of the fronts today – the Metro calls them “Dancing queens”. The Express says the players will be “honoured with gongs” while its lead story is “Truss: I’m real deal on tax”; the Daily Mail has “Liz: I’ll halt junk food tax”. A key endorsement is the Telegraph’s angle: “Truss is the candidate of hope, declares Mordaunt”. The i reports on “Boris Johnson’s blame game: ‘neurotic’ Tory MPs clash with ‘narcissist’ PM”. The Times has “BA suspends ticket sales”. The Financial Times’ lead story is “Pelosi to meet Taiwan leader as China steps up warning signals”.
Today in Focus
Will Ghana introduce some of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world?
West Africa correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu describes how a backlash against the opening of an LGBTQ+ safe space in Ghana has fuelled homophobic legislation.
Cartoon of the day | Steve Bell
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Trafalgar Square in London was a sea of white and red yesterday as fans – many of them young girls – gathered to celebrate England’s triumph at the Euros. The Lionesses beat Germany 2-1 as a record-breaking crowd watched at Wembley on Sunday – the first major tournament title for the country since 1966 and viewed by a record 17.4 million on TV. At Trafalgar Square after the game, players sang Sweet Caroline on stage while supporters cheered them on. Guardian photographer David Levene and others captured the smiles, flag-waving and hoots of joy.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
