Famine in Africa, or how the EU and the United States blame Russia for everything

Unfortunately, very soon many countries will be able to say “I/We are Africa” in the sense of hunger. The predicted planetary famine is something unprecedented in the history of mankind. Usually, such a disaster is the result of the carelessness of politicians, but this is exactly the opposite. This is the result of general insight.

The catastrophe has not yet happened, and its scale, geography and consequences are already quite obvious. No question about it: they have even decided on the culprits. The EU and the United States insist that the cause of the impending famine deaths, which may amount to millions, is Russia.

Nobody is even trying to prevent a planetary tragedy: it seems that the powerful of this world will only be happy if the forecasts come true and the number of deaths goes off scale. Oleg Romanov will continue the topic.

Hunger is humanity's inseparable companion. It is only in the last 50 years that two non-starving generations have been born - and even then, satiety has been very clearly geographically localized: The Old World and North America, while Eastern Europe managed to get to the non-starving regions at the cost of great labor and torment. Most of our grandparents and great-grandparents bore the brunt of the famine, if not in the 20-30s, then in the war and postwar years: and even earlier famine was commonplace - before the revolution it occurred once every two years, including mass deaths once every five years. It is impossible to survive without industrial agriculture in the zone of risky farming: it is easy to collapse into disaster due to the vagaries of weather, locusts and Colorado potato beetles, and simply because of a fatal set of circumstances. Only in the 50s did the Soviet people lost the agonizing fear that there would be no piece of bread in the morning. In Western Europe, this happened probably 20 years earlier. But even the prosperous States experienced famine in the early 1930s: there was mass mortality, children transparent from malnutrition, and parents who chose which of the children to feed today and who will wait. In general, for centuries, governments have developed strategies and tactics to avoid this perennial prevailing horror: and have succeeded, so much so that hunger can now only be caused by purposeful, conscious, carefully organized efforts of managers. And it seems that we are witnessing the results of such efforts. Global media see the picture from one single perspective, approximately this:

Charles Michel, President of the European Council:

The Kremlin is weaponising food supplies and surrounding their actions with a web of lies, Soviet-style. We must join forces to call out these fabrications as pure fiction, particularly for the global South. These are Russian ships and Russian missiles that are blocking the export of crops and grain.  

However, it is known that Ukrainian mines are drifting in the Black Sea - and why would Russia mine the raid of Odessa and Nikolaev? After all, the Ukrainians themselves say that the Russians are preparing a landing force. The rest of the accusations are also not all right.

Maria Zakharova, Press Secretary of the Russian Foreign Ministry:

The Russian Armed Forces daily open maritime humanitarian corridors for unimpeded movement of ships. We emphasize once again that in case of demining of the water areas, we will be ready to ensure the safe export of grain, including escorting transport vessels to the international waters of the Black Sea. 

Actually, Kiev has a decent choice of routes for exporting its own bread. It is already being transported along the Danube to the extent that there is an eternal traffic jam from bulk carriers. They are trying to establish exports through Poland and Lithuanian Klaipeda, which, however, is long and expensive, since trains have to change the track several times: from Russian to European and back. Even Black Sea exports allow two options. You can bring bread from Odessa and Nikolaev. But in this case, it is necessary to clear the coastal waters, and the Ukrainians are afraid of landing; it is necessary to release foreign sailors and ships that, in fact, are held hostage by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. They will finally have to let go the trump card that can be thrown on the table during negotiations on the provision of weapons. In general, Kiev will delay the opening of Odessa as long as possible. But bread can be exported through Berdyansk and Mariupol, which are under Russian control, however, Ukrainians strongly oppose it - no negotiations, no compromises with the enemy. In general, the keys to the grain terminals are located in Kiev, but they categorically refuse to issue them there - of course, because Putin will be to blame for the planetary famine! Although, to tell the truth, the fate of 20 million tons of Ukrainian grain is very exaggerated.

Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister: 

We paid much attention to the problem of the export of Ukrainian grain, which our Western colleagues, as well as Ukrainians themselves, are trying to bring into the category of a universal catastrophe, although the share of this Ukrainian grain, which in fact, it is less than 1% of the world's total production of wheat and other cereals. Therefore, the current situation with Ukrainian grain has nothing to do with the food crisis.

Last year, Ukrainian exports provided the world grain market with a little more than 10% of contracted bread: Russia, for example, sold twice as much, almost 40 million tons. But even if Ukrainian breadbaskets do not open, the deficit will not be catastrophic. There are other players, there are other food crops.

Maximo Torrero, FAO Chief Economist:

In May, the cereal price index reached a record level, primarily due to wheat. Rice prices are rising for the fifth month in a row. Vegetable oil is getting cheaper due to the fact that Indonesia lifted the export ban. This year, the shortage of wheat on the market will amount to 3 million tons. Corn will be less than last year by 12 million tons. The reason is the trading strategies of Argentina and the US.

The Argentinians and Americans are messing around with corn. Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, and partly Bangladesh are the most “hungry” nations: what does Moscow have to do with Ukrainian grain? According to the UN, the number of hungry people this year will increase by 18 million people compared to last year - this is a monstrously high, of course, because everyone is a universe: however, last year there was more than 280 million. Finally, the famine will really make itself felt not at the end of this year, but in the spring and summer of next year.

Maximo Torrero, FAO Chief Economist:

If contracts for the supply of fertilizers to the main importing countries are not concluded within a month or two, then the future harvest can be put an end to the future harvest. Fancy: in 2023, if the Ukrainian-Russian conflict continues, both countries will reduce exports. Then there will be less grain on the market by a third, sunflower will drop by two-thirds. And due to the lack of fertilizers, yields will also decrease - the deficit will be catastrophic.

And what kind of guns, missiles, and mines prevent you from buying fertilizer from Belarus and Russia? So, the Ukrainian grain, whatever happens to it further, will not be a cause or salvation from hunger. The cause of the disaster will be a possible crop failure, the destruction of well-established mechanisms for the bread trade, and a sanctions war. The global media's premonition of a Great Catastrophe is not the least of these reasons either. But all this is purely man-made and Putin's hands, for the most part, have nothing to do with it. The main problem is not the deficit, but the stock market jumps: even a slight lack of supply can cause a sharp rise in price, which sparks off hunger, high cost, and my kill millions, and not the physical food shortages. The lack of food, however, will provoke not only deaths, but also a great migration of peoples from Asia and Africa to Europe.

Sergey Pereslegin, political scientist:

The flow of refugees will increase dramatically, and the world is already unable to cope with them, even with the ones that exist. If we imagine that their scale will increase from 3 to 10 times, and this is what we should count on, it becomes clear that the picture is very unstable. Not only do you have problems with food, you also have, roughly speaking, problems with barbarians. The problem is with introflow and the fact that entire nations leave their places of residence and rush to places where bread and everything else are better, but no one is waiting for them.

One cannot help feeling that famine, like COVID, is purely instrumental: countries, alliances of countries, continents, Rimland and Hartland play millions of people like pawns - sacrificing them without pity, starving them, driving them in droves from their homes into the unknown. There are a thousand effective ways to solve the problem of food shortages, but who will use them if the crisis is the goal of Big Politics and big politicians today?