The pandemic is deepening food insecurity throughout the developing world, raising the prospect of millions of hungry people in crisis, global food experts are warning.
Prices have gone up nearly a third from last year, with sugar up 60% and corn up 67%, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Combined with income losses due to the pandemic, the effect is devastating.
“What is unique about this time is that prices are going up, and at the same time people’s incomes have been decimated,” a UN economist told the Wall Street Journal.
The pandemic drove up to 124 million people worldwide into poverty, according to the World Bank. Consequences include unrest in nations like Sudan and Colombia, and increasing migration from Central America, where governments are ill-equipped to handle the crisis.
