COVID-19. Conflict. Collapsing economies. Drought. Now we’re facing a new disaster: “famines of biblical proportions in 2021”.
That’s according to the 2020 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, David Beasley, who runs the World Food Program and has added its voice to a growing cacophony of alarms, stating “we’re on the brink of a hunger pandemic”.
The world we live in is an immensely complex device. Everything is connected. Everything is balanced. Everything – be it global stock markets or supply chains – is part of an extensive interconnected system.
Which is why the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of environmental disasters have thrown some serious spanners in the works.
Australia’s Royal Commission into recent catastrophic bushfires warns of “compounding disasters” affecting the “economy, critical infrastructure and essential services”.
Defence Force chief Angus Campbell has warned disasters are already “more extreme and more common”.
Now Mr Beasley is using the Nobel Prize to highlight the warning signs his 20,000 staff are seeing worldwide.
Refugee camps are overflowing, their occupants having fled their fields. Farmers are leaving their land fallow due to a lack of labour, seed and feed. And many of those crops that have been planted are wilting under drought or being washed away by storms.
“It’s getting worse out there … (and) our hardest work is yet to come,” he said.
Beasley says world leaders must be alerted to “this tragedy that we are facing – crises that really are going to be extraordinary over the next, who knows, 12 to 18 months”.
And that’s just one of the known unknowns the world faces in 2021.
Worse are the unknown unknowns.
“Ultimately, the longer-term consequences of this pandemic – like all previous pandemics – are simply unknowable to those who must endure them,” says Professor of political science Andrew Latham.
STARVATION, DESTABILISATION, MIGRATION
“2021’s going to be a very bad year,” Beasley says. “You’re not going to have enough money to fund all the projects you historically fund. Right now, we really need to focus on icebergs, and icebergs are famine, starvation, destabilisation and migration.”
International efforts to stimulate the global economy have only delayed the onset, he says.
“We were able to avert it in 2020 … because the world leaders responded with money, stimulus packages, deferral of debt,” he told the Associated Press.
But that money is evaporating. And Beasley believes most governments don’t have enough reserves for a second shot.
For 2021, that leaves much of the world noticing increased food prices and empty shelves – and about 270 million people facing crisis levels of hunger.
“There’s about three dozen countries that could possibly enter famine conditions,” Beasley said.
The COVID-19 death toll is rapidly accelerating around the world. Picture: Justin HAMEL / AFPSource:AFP
The World Food Program believes Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Burkina Faso have already tipped into famine. Afghanistan, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Lebanon, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somali, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe aren’t far behind.
Beasley says his “great hope” is that those billionaires who have profited from disrupted supply chains would step forward with donations for the likes of global school lunch programs.
It’s all acting as a feedback loop on the global economy. And it’s not that this is unexpected. History clearly defines the flow-on effect plagues have on national security, food security and civil unrest. Throw in a natural disaster or two and you get a real crisis.
A dog sits on the back of a ute as residents leave a flooded area following the passage of Hurricane Eta in Honduras. Picture: Orlando SIERRA / AFPSource:AFP
THE PANDEMIC PARADOX
History is full of pandemics. Their catastrophic economic and cultural symptoms are well defined.
We’re not immune.
“People are beginning to understand that the little changes COVID-19 has already ushered in or accelerated – telemedicine, remote work, social distancing, the death of the handshake, online shopping, the virtual disappearance of cash and so on – have begun to change their way of life,” says political science researcher Professor Andrew Latham.
Pandemics alter society’s views of the world. Pandemics up-end fundamental economic systems. Pandemics sway the balance of power between nations.
Plague ravaged the Roman Empire in its dying days. Out of its ashes rose Christianity, feudalism and the concept of personal freedoms.
The Black Death of the Middle Ages created the concept of labour rights, a middle class and an attitude that technology could solve a multitude of ills.
COVID-19, while not as fatal as these pandemics, could still be equally as earth shattering.
“Will the bumbling efforts of the open societies of the West to come to grips with the virus shattering already-wavering faith in liberal democracy, creating a space for other ideologies to evolve and metastasise?” Professor Latham asks.
“COVID-19 may be accelerating an already ongoing geopolitical shift in the balance of power between the US and China … (and) COVID-19 seems to be accelerating the unravelling of long-established patterns and practices of work, with repercussions that could affect the future of office towers, big cities and mass transit, to name just a few.”
BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Australia’s Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangements warns: “We are likely to see more compounding disasters on a national scale with far-reaching consequences.”
“Compound disasters may be caused by multiple disasters happening simultaneously, or one after another. Some may involve multiple hazards — fires, floods and storms. Some have cascading effects — threatening not only lives and homes, but also the nation’s economy, critical infrastructure and essential services, such as our electricity, telecommunications and water supply, and our roads, railways and airports,” the report reads.
Princeton University international affairs analyst Professor Michael Oppenheimer agrees we are entering an era of disasters. And warns we’re not ready for it.
“Each disaster could compound the damage of the next, with less and less time for people to recover in between,” he writes in Foreign Affairs.
Professor Oppenheimer says the Paris Climate Accord is not proving to be the vaccine our climate systems need. And that means compounding, and overlapping, weather disasters are becoming much more likely.
A hurricane or cyclone strike does much more than up-end trees, flatten houses and flood fields. The wheels of industry stop turning. Distribution networks crawl to a halt. Supplies – be they industrial, medical or food – are strained. Insurance claims, lost tax, lost consumption – all have global reverberations.
Superstorm Sandy in 2012 caused $US80 billion in damage. Two or three such superstorms will create a crisis.
Add one to pandemic, drought and civil unrest and you get: “The interaction of extreme events creates risks of an entirely new type and magnitude,” Professor Oppenheimer writes. “The bottom line is that few if any countries are sufficiently prepared to deal with what is in store.”
China, which embarked on the mission of becoming a superpower by showing its economic and military might to the world, now may be brought to its knees over a shortage of food. Reduction in overall domestic food production; a recent deluge in the Yangtze River basin, the rice bowl of China; and a slash in imports, mostly aggravated by deteriorating diplomatic relations, has caused Beijing to hit the panic button.
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently launched the “Clean Plate” campaign to ensure that food supplies do not deplete quickly and bring about a repetition of the 1959 Great Famine, in which millions of people starved to death. And recent skirmishes along the Sino-Indian border, as well as China’s aggression in the South China Sea, may be Xi’s strategy to divert attention from China’s pending food crisis, just as Mao Zedong did in 1962 to mask the failed Great Leap Forward movement.
The Yangtze River basin, which accounts for 70 percent of China’s rice production, has seen the worst floods since 1939, damaging millions of acres of cropland. According to the China Meteorological Administration, the country has experienced a 20 percent increase in heavy rainfall since 1961, taking the water level of more than 400 rivers above the flood control line, with 33 of them reaching record highs. The heavy rain has ravaged vast swaths of industrial and agricultural land, and experts warn the worst may be yet to come.
Soaring prices of agricultural products are stoking food-security jitters in China. According to the China’s National Bureau of Statistics, food prices went up by 13 percent in July, compared to the previous July; the price of pork rose about 85 percent. On a year-on-year basis, food prices have increased by 10 percent in 2020 — the price of corn is 20 percent higher and the price of soybeans, 30 percent.
According to global financial group Nomura, China’s agricultural GDP could fall by nearly a percentage point in the July-September quarter, rendering losses of $1.7 billion (USD) in the agriculture output. Chinese brokerage firm Shenwan Hongyuan has anticipated that China could lose 11.2 million tons of grains this year, compared to last year. Although Xi claimed that the country’s grain output increased this year, imports of grains have gone up almost 22 percent, to 74 million tons in the first half of this year. Imports of wheat went up by a whopping 197 percent during the period.
This has forced Beijing to release 62.5 tons of rice, 50 tons of corn and 760,000 tons of soybeans from its strategic reserve — the amount is significantly higher than last year.
Insect infestations also have caused great damage to China’s food sector. An invasion of fall armyworms and locusts devoured millions of acres of wheat and corn crops this year. African swine fever has forced authorities to kill more than 180 million pigs, or about 40 percent of China’s swine population, causing prices to soar. Imports of meat have jumped significantly in just one year.
It may come as no surprise that China has spoiled bilateral relations with those nations on whom it depends for its food. Increased hostilities, coupled with pandemic-related disruption in the supply chain and global commodity markets, have created huge barriers for Beijing to meet its domestic consumption demands and ensure enough stock for “rainy days.”
The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia are among the top exporters of agriculture commodities to China. Despite its dispute over tariffs with the U.S., China still remains heavily dependent on the United States to meet its food demand. China’s agricultural imports in 2019 were pegged at $13.8 billion (USD), up from $9.1 billion in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even during the first quarter of 2020, China imported farm products from the U.S. worth $5.08 billion, while its exports dropped by 17.2 percent in January and February and 6.6 percent in March.
Beijing has shot itself in its foot by banning agricultural products from Australia over its demand for an independent inquiry into the COVID-19 outbreak. Similarly, farm trade with Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia and India are in the doldrums over different issues, including the potential security threat from Huawei and border skirmishes. China’s food shortfall will only get worse in coming years unless it undertakes major agricultural reforms, warns the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
A key question is, can China buy enough food to feed its 1.4 billion people if domestic production does not increase and imports are its only mainstay? Surely, China’s food self-sufficiency rate must increase, but the current situation appears to preclude such an improvement.
It is difficult to ascertain the real situation since information coming out of China may not reflect the true severity of the crisis. However, Xi’s statements on the need for “gastronomic discipline” are reminiscent of similar instructions issued by Mao in 1959, at the beginning of the Great Famine (1958-1962). A combination of factors indicate that China is at risk for this history to repeat itself — a massive food shortage that could worsen into one of its biggest crises since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.
Jianli Yang is founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor, and a former political prisoner in China.
China, which embarked on the mission of becoming a superpower by showing its economic and military might to the world, now may be brought to its knees over a shortage of food. Reduction in overall domestic food production; a recent deluge in the Yangtze River basin, the rice bowl of China; and a slash in imports, mostly aggravated by deteriorating diplomatic relations, has caused Beijing to hit the panic button.
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently launched the “Clean Plate” campaign to ensure that food supplies do not deplete quickly and bring about a repetition of the 1959 Great Famine, in which millions of people starved to death. And recent skirmishes along the Sino-Indian border, as well as China’s aggression in the South China Sea, may be Xi’s strategy to divert attention from China’s pending food crisis, just as Mao Zedong did in 1962 to mask the failed Great Leap Forward movement.
The Yangtze River basin, which accounts for 70 percent of China’s rice production, has seen the worst floods since 1939, damaging millions of acres of cropland. According to the China Meteorological Administration, the country has experienced a 20 percent increase in heavy rainfall since 1961, taking the water level of more than 400 rivers above the flood control line, with 33 of them reaching record highs. The heavy rain has ravaged vast swaths of industrial and agricultural land, and experts warn the worst may be yet to come.
Soaring prices of agricultural products are stoking food-security jitters in China. According to the China’s National Bureau of Statistics, food prices went up by 13 percent in July, compared to the previous July; the price of pork rose about 85 percent. On a year-on-year basis, food prices have increased by 10 percent in 2020 — the price of corn is 20 percent higher and the price of soybeans, 30 percent.
According to global financial group Nomura, China’s agricultural GDP could fall by nearly a percentage point in the July-September quarter, rendering losses of $1.7 billion (USD) in the agriculture output. Chinese brokerage firm Shenwan Hongyuan has anticipated that China could lose 11.2 million tons of grains this year, compared to last year. Although Xi claimed that the country’s grain output increased this year, imports of grains have gone up almost 22 percent, to 74 million tons in the first half of this year. Imports of wheat went up by a whopping 197 percent during the period.
This has forced Beijing to release 62.5 tons of rice, 50 tons of corn and 760,000 tons of soybeans from its strategic reserve — the amount is significantly higher than last year.
Insect infestations also have caused great damage to China’s food sector. An invasion of fall armyworms and locusts devoured millions of acres of wheat and corn crops this year. African swine fever has forced authorities to kill more than 180 million pigs, or about 40 percent of China’s swine population, causing prices to soar. Imports of meat have jumped significantly in just one year.
It may come as no surprise that China has spoiled bilateral relations with those nations on whom it depends for its food. Increased hostilities, coupled with pandemic-related disruption in the supply chain and global commodity markets, have created huge barriers for Beijing to meet its domestic consumption demands and ensure enough stock for “rainy days.”
The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia are among the top exporters of agriculture commodities to China. Despite its dispute over tariffs with the U.S., China still remains heavily dependent on the United States to meet its food demand. China’s agricultural imports in 2019 were pegged at $13.8 billion (USD), up from $9.1 billion in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even during the first quarter of 2020, China imported farm products from the U.S. worth $5.08 billion, while its exports dropped by 17.2 percent in January and February and 6.6 percent in March.
Beijing has shot itself in its foot by banning agricultural products from Australia over its demand for an independent inquiry into the COVID-19 outbreak. Similarly, farm trade with Canada, New Zealand, Indonesia and India are in the doldrums over different issues, including the potential security threat from Huawei and border skirmishes. China’s food shortfall will only get worse in coming years unless it undertakes major agricultural reforms, warns the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
A key question is, can China buy enough food to feed its 1.4 billion people if domestic production does not increase and imports are its only mainstay? Surely, China’s food self-sufficiency rate must increase, but the current situation appears to preclude such an improvement.
It is difficult to ascertain the real situation since information coming out of China may not reflect the true severity of the crisis. However, Xi’s statements on the need for “gastronomic discipline” are reminiscent of similar instructions issued by Mao in 1959, at the beginning of the Great Famine (1958-1962). A combination of factors indicate that China is at risk for this history to repeat itself — a massive food shortage that could worsen into one of its biggest crises since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.
Jianli Yang is founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China, a Tiananmen Massacre survivor, and a former political prisoner in China.
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