“We’re hungry. Send Something” -Global Food Crisis
22nd May 2022
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
“Please send something. We are hungry”. That’s the kind of thing my uncle recently said during a phone call from Lagos, Nigeria.
For UN agencies and humanitarian workers around the world, the worry is of hunger and starvation in many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Sounding the alarm, António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said Ukraine-related shortages could help “tip tens of millions of people over the edge into food insecurity” and the result could be “malnutrition, mass hunger and famine in a crisis that could last for years”.
The World Food Programme estimates about 811 million people go to bed hungry each night. For example, the number of people on the brink of starvation across Africa’s Sahel region, is at least 10 times higher than in 2019 - pre-Covid.
Ukraine and Russia normally produce about 30% of global wheat exports so the adverse impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the availability and price of staples such as wheat, and sunflower oil has been huge.
Ukraine’s wheat production this year is expected to be over 30% down, and exporting much of it is currently impossible due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade. Hence global commodity prices remain at record levels.
Countries, such as Egypt and Lebanon will find it hard to cope with increased food insecurity.
Political upheaval
Scarce food, price increases, electricity blackouts and shortages of gas, petrol and medicines, recently provoked a political crisis in Sri Lanka.
In Sri Lanka, months of protests lead to the resignation of the prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, but even that was not enough to prevent violent unrest. Many countries face similar problems.
Under Imran Khan, double-digit inflation left many Pakistanis unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Shahbaz Sharif, his replacement as Prime Minister is not expected to improve matters as he also continues to implement IMF policies in running Pakistan’s economy.
Incompetence, corruption and following IMF dictates has created a disaster in many countries, and dire food shortages and inflation might be the catalyst that tips people over into revolting against an intolerable situation.
That’s a situation now facing unpopular and insecure regimes from Tunisia to Lebanon and beyond.
If they worsen, today’s supply shortfalls and high prices will breed more grievances and could threaten Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s regime, just as similar grievances threatened Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer and about 70 million people rely on state-subsidised bread. Russia and Ukraine accounted for 80% of Egypt’s grain imports last year.
In Iran, violent protests erupted last week in Khuzestan after the government raised the price of cooking oil, bread and dairy products. If the situation worsens, there could also be more unrest.
Famine and starvation
In many parts of the world, especially Africa, food insecurity is nothing new and the risk of famine and hunger are ever present. With the conflict in Ukraine, that situation is getting worse.
The total number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food assistance has nearly doubled since 2016, according to the Global Network Against Food Crises, a joint EU and UN project.
The network said people in Yemen and some other countries were threatened by starvation, the collapse of livelihoods, and death.
The UN chief, Guterres , warned that Putin’s war was seriously affecting efforts to fight hunger in Africa. He said it was imperative, to “bring back the agriculture production of Ukraine and the food and fertiliser production of Russia and Belarus into world markets”.
Food security and national borders
Some years ago, travelling in Nigeria from Abuja to Zaria by car, I was reminded of how fertile the land is. Rain falls, there is human labour and fertile land. What more do you need in order to be self-sufficient in food production?
Why do you need to import wheat or other food stuffs?
The same is true in Pakistan: land is fertile, food of all types grow, yet Pakistan has become a net importer of food.
Pakistan’s food import bill grew by 53.98 per cent to $7.5 billion year-on-year during the 11 months of the fiscal year to June 2021 mainly due to sugar, wheat, palm oil and pulses imports to bridge the shortfall in domestic production of agriculture produce.
In Nigeria and other countries, some individuals were given exclusive concessions to import sugar or other food items leading them to become immensely rich and destroying local production of rice, wheat, sugar and other food commodities. At election time, these individuals then back the politicians who gave them those concessions. Such is the corruption democracy breeds and this has happened in many Muslim countries.
So, government policy and mismanagement are what has led us to now join the ranks of countries that are unable to feed their populations without importing food -a deadly dependence on others. Is there any sign of a reversal of such policies? No.
Independence and food security
The Islamic Khilafah state implements the shariah rules and solutions revealed by Allah (swt), and has a duty to convey Islam to the world. That leads to a mindset that we must be independent, economically, politically, militarily and in terms of food production.
Hence the re-establishment of the Khilafah state and the implementation of the shariah solutions will lead to self-sufficiency in food production and true independence.
And in dire situations like the famine and starvation we currently witness in Afghanistan, the Khilafah’s removal of borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan or the Gulf countries and Egypt means vital commodities such as food and oil are sent from where they are abundant to where there is a dire need.
When he was the Khalifah, sayeedena Umar (ra) ordered food to be sent from Egypt and other provinces of the Khilafah state when there was famine in Madina.
There is enough food to feed the world. There is enough fertile land and human capital to ensure the Muslim world is self-sufficient in food production as Islam orders. Today, there is a lack of independent Islamic political leadership to implement the shariah solutions to make that happen. Re-establishing the Islamic Khilafah state is a project we should all work for and for which we must seek Allah’s help.
Please share the newsletter. Thanks.
Love and salams,
Taji
🧔 What have I been up to?
At the weekend, we hosted a gathering for some of the UK’s best Imams, scholars, du’at, activists and lawyers. At the end of the evening a few dear brothers took this photo together. There were over sixty of us masha’Allah.
📖 Ayah and Hadith
هُوَ ٱلَّذِى يُصَوِّرُكُمْ فِى ٱلْأَرْحَامِ كَيْفَ يَشَآءُ ۚ لَآ إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْحَكِيمُ
“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” ― Albert Einstein.
❤ My Favourite Things
Podcast –The carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages, an episode from Post reports.
Reporters meet a carpet cleaner who speaks two dozen languages — and they have an update on what’s happened to him since this story was first published in print.
How did he pick up these languages? Was there anything special about him? Fascinating.
Read past newsletters at tajimustafa.com