Food as a weapon | Gulf Editorial

The World Food Program warns in its latest report of a global famine crisis due to the lack of grain due to the Ukrainian war. World Bank President David Matthias warns of a humanitarian catastrophe, while the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that about 220 million people will face hunger and food insecurity this year with the continuation of the Ukrainian war and its repercussions on the global food market. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also warned of a global famine that could last for years.
The global food basket was facing many crises during the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, and it is exacerbated by the Ukrainian war due to the inability to provide supply chains for wheat and other types of grain, as Russia and Ukraine supply the world with about 30% of wheat, due to the interruption of shipping lines across the Black Sea And the inability of the ports to function, but the real crisis lies in the harsh economic sanctions imposed by Western Europe and the United States on Russia, which prevented its ability to supply the world with wheat, corn and fertilizers necessary for agriculture, meaning that the grain turned into a weapon in the battle against Russia.
Western economic sanctions on Russia, like supplying Kyiv with advanced weapons, constitute a means of putting pressure on it with the aim of bringing it to its knees, which has backfired, as the global food crisis exacerbated, and prices of basic commodities set records due to difficulties in supply and supplies, and sanctions turned into a means to bring them to their knees. the scientist.
Western countries accuse Russia of starving the world, while the latter respond that the sanctions are the reason, and when the sanctions are lifted, exports can easily resume smoothly. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that his country does not stand in the way of grain exports. He said, “We do not prevent the export of Ukrainian grain, and it can be exported through the ports subject to Ukraine,” noting that Russia “did not place mines in the roads leading to the ports.”
The truth is that when a loaf of bread enters the battle as a weapon, global food security becomes in real danger, politics becomes an immoral term, and the human spirit is lacking under the impulses of power, greed, control and domination, and then no one asks where the conscience and moral responsibility are.
The United States has previously used economic sanctions against many countries during the past decades and their repercussions have affected millions of people without affecting the regimes, but the current sanctions on Russia are completely different because they affect the entire world, as they affect important economic sectors that the world needs daily, such as grain and oil And gas, so its effects will be wide and affect billions of people, including the peoples of Western countries that participate in the sanctions.
The United Nations warns of global famine, and the longer the war continues, the worse the situation will get.