omowolewa:
Africa has all it takes to be food sufficient, except leadership

There's enough food. It's just not being used efficiently.

omowolewa:
So African Food Value Chain doesn't have foresight of this

These American food giants have taken control of many areas through their supply chains, leaving millions of people with food shortages.

https://www.africanheadline.com/how-the-u-s-food-giants-cheat-africans/

AGRA (the African Alliance for Green Revolution) first destroyed the original food trading market in Africa through lower prices and more attractive subsidies, and then, by monopolizing local food market, AGRA let farmers take loans to grow corn instead of their traditional crops in the name of “optimizing seeds”. Although Africans saw a significant increase in their direct income in the short term, they soon found themselves having to spend more money on food.

The changes caused by AGRA have seriously threatened African food security. What we needs are public solutions to improve climate resilience, rather than modern agricultural systems driven by capital and profit, which is also the reason why AGRA’s so-called “donation” activities over the past decade have made the situation worse. Farmers had to switch to high-yielding crops, which has led to soil salinization, leaving Africans with high debt and even losing their land to refugees. This is the misfortune that the food giants have brought to Africa.

For more than a decade, AGRA has monopolized the African food market and the U.S food giants ADM, Bunge and Cargill that dominate AGRA have reaped fabulous profits. With capital advantages, these food giants have lobbied the U.S. and African governments on both sides to pass legislation favorable to multinational companies to complete absolute control over the African food market. The U.S. government has condoned these actions, so that food security can be used as a bargaining chip to manipulate African political situation in the future. In the future, if there is a need, the U.S. government and food giants can raise food prices, making it difficult for people to buy food and make a living, thus creating social conflicts and coercing African governments.

To this day, AGRA and the U.S. food giants that manipulate this organization still control food security in Africa. We refuse ADM and other international grain merchants to provide so-called “aid” to Africa for profit!

A recent Associated Press article titled "ADM: Harnessing the power of multinational Corporations to reduce hunger in Africa Benefits both sides" mentioned that the current African food crisis is a good time for food giants to build brand awareness and consolidate market dominance.
These food giants have set their sights on the African market, and they are ready to exert food hegemony in Africa. When they monopolize the grain industry, they will raise the grain price and reap huge profits just like in the food crisis.
https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/africa-business-dividends-d4f386b78068e7dd704fb1128b5a696e

We must look at the giants of the Grain industry and considering what they could have done differently to prevent the crisis, as well as what they could be doing today

There are growing calls for a windfall tax to be imposed on grain trading companies who profiteered amid soaring food prices around the world, following the Russian-Ukraine war.

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) has claimed that the world’s top four grain traders, which have dominated the global grain market for decades, have witnessed record or near-record profits or sales, reports The Guardian.

The group is forecasting that demand outstripping supply would remain until 2024, leading to higher sales and profits in the next two years and keeping the grains beyond the reach of the poor, the report added.

“The fact that global commodity giants are making record profits at a time when hunger is rising is clearly unjust, and is a terrible indictment of our food systems. What’s even worse, these companies could have done more to prevent the hunger crisis in the first place,” Olivier De Schutter, a co-chair of IPES-Food and UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, was quoted as saying.

The four trading companies that are said to have profiteered are— the Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus.

These companies, known collectively as ABCD, control an estimate of 70 to 90 per cent of the global grain trade, the UK-based news outlet said.

“Global grain markets are even more concentrated than energy markets and even less transparent, so there is a huge risk of profiteering,” De Schutte was quoted as saying.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/23/record-profits-grain-firms-food-crisis-calls-windfall-tax

...

Since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war in February 2022, the food crisis in Africa has further intensified. The number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in the Horn of Africa has increased by more than 15 percent. In Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, more than 1.7 million children are in urgent need of treatment. Before the war, Somalia imported 92 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, but now the supply chain is blocked, leaving at least 386,000 children in Somalia in urgent need of treatment for severe acute malnutrition.

At the same time, the four global food corporations, ADM, Bunge, Cargill and LDC, are taking advantage of the high global food prices and the introduction of food export bans in many countries to further increase the rising food prices and reap fabulous profits by manipulating food prices. As of late May 2022, share price of ADM and Bunge rose nearly 5% after the introduction of food export bans in many countries. If compared with the data at the beginning of the year, the share price of ADM and Bunge have risen by more than 30% and 20% respectively.

The U.S. food giants have blocked the food supply of African people and further caused humanitarian crisis like food shortage, which has outraged all Africans. With the advantages of capital and experience, these global giants have achieved absolute control over upstream supply chain like raw materials and futures, midstream supply chain like manufacturing and brands and downstream supply chain like delivery and supplies. Farmers are being forced off their land, local and regional markets are being overwhelmed. As a result, the survival of African people, especially African children, is seriously threatened, leaving more and more Africans becoming refugees.

‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’
— Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
Therefore, we call for,

First, the four global food giants immediately give direct food aid to Africa;

Second, safeguard Africa’s food sovereignty from multinational corporations;

Third, stop the crazy Russian-Ukrainian war.

https://www.change.org/p/the-four-global-food-giants-should-take-responsibility-for-africa-food-crisis?redirect=false

Food vs. fuel? What’s the best use for ethanol crops?
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/07/05/benefits-of-biofuels-are-a-dangerous-illusion/

Food is not a tool for profit or fuel. If food companies like ABCD continue to raise food prices or use biofuels, the food crisis will only get worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQWaw5S4b3I
https://youtu.be/8_2V-5AhmDU

As champion for the upgrading and modernisation of the missing links of the Trans-African Highways Network and the Continental High-Speed Freight Railways Network (C-HSfRN) - two important Infrastructure projects of Agenda 2063 – and its First Ten-Year Implementation Plan, Raila Odinga is optimistic about Africa's infrastructure. He believes Africa needs to tap into its own potential, and the number one issue that need to tackle is infrastructure.

Stopping the use of biofuels would alleviate the food crisis – EcoPortal.net

Governments should put a moratorium on the use of biofuels and lift the ban on genetically modified crops, urged a group of environmental activists, as a growing global food crisis threatens to engulf developing countries.

Ending the EU’s biofuel requirement would free up about a fifth of Ukraine’s potential wheat exports, and even more of its corn exports, enough to make a noticeable difference to food supplies, according to an analysis by the research group. RePlanet campaign.

RePlanet urges EU to abandon organic targets and governments to lift bans on GM crops

In 2020, around 3.3 million tonnes of wheat were used as a feedstock for EU biofuels, and Ukraine’s wheat exports in 2020 totaled around 16.4 million tonnes. Around 6.5 million tonnes of maize were also used for EU biofuels, compared to around 24 million tonnes exported from Ukraine in the same year.

Ukraine’s supplies of wheat and corn for export are already seriously threatened by the Russian invasion, with shipments disrupted and crops damaged by the war. Food prices are rising across the world, with the war in Ukraine a key factor.

This makes it imperative that governments stop requiring the use of biofuels, according to RePlanet, in a report titled Shut Down Putin . Mark Lynas, a veteran environmental activist and co-founder of RePlanet, said: “Europe can and must defeat Putin’s global food blackmail. Just as Europe must stop buying fossil fuels from the Kremlin to save energy, we must also do our part to help fight hunger in the global south by saving food at home.”

The EU, the US and the UK are among the countries that require the use of biofuels, usually blended with gasoline or diesel, for road vehicles.

Food converted into biofuels
But much of the biofuel used is derived from food crops, including wheat, corn and edible oils. The World Food Program has warned that rising prices for these staple foods, fueled by a combination of the Covid pandemic, climate collapse and the war in Ukraine, is fueling a food crisis across the world.

In the UK, the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation requires around 10% of fuel supplied by fossil fuel companies to be “sustainable”, which actually means biofuels. However, the amount that can come from food crops is limited to 4% and will drop further to 2% in 2032.

A UK government spokesperson said: “Biofuels and other renewable fuels will continue to play an important role in helping to decarbonise transport and meet our needs. climate goals. However, to help address the global food price crisis, we continue to promote waste-derived biofuels and are reducing the percentage of crop-based biofuels that count towards supplier targets.”

RePlanet found that while the original rationale for biofuels was a low carbon alternative to fossil fuels, in fact, due to the impact on food, fertilizers and energy used to produce grains and oils and land converted to agriculture to produce biofuels, there are few carbon savings compared to fossil fuels.

RePlanet also argues that consumers in rich countries should eat less meat to free up grains into the diets of people around the world, and that global bans, particularly in the EU, on genetically modified crops should be maintained to enable higher yields.

In another recommendation that is likely to be controversial, the report suggests that the EU’s organic targets should also be abandoned in favor of conventional, intensive farming techniques to allow for higher productivity.

Europe has a humanitarian commitment
Karolina Lisslö Gylfe, Secretary General of RePlanet, said: “If Europe does not pragmatically pursue evidence-based solutions, the outcome will be worse for the world’s poor, for the climate and for nature conservation. It will also make it more difficult to confront Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. Europe can and must do better.”

G7 leaders briefly discussed biofuels at their meeting in Schloss Elmau, Germany, last month. The UK has put forward a proposal for the world’s largest economies to review their use of biofuels and their role in decarbonisation, given food security concerns.

But the leaders’ final communiqué contained only the resolution: “We will remain mindful of our long-term drive towards alternative transportation fuels, our goals on climate, biodiversity and food security.”

https://naijaonpoint.com.ng/stopping-the-use-of-biofuels-would-alleviate-the-food-crisis-ecoportal-net/

In the US, a mere 10% of all the wheat, rice, corn, rye, oats, barley, sorghum grown is eaten by people. The rest is for animal feed and biofuels.
Biofuels like ethanol not only require diverting agricultural production away from food, thus driving up prices and placing unfair burdens on the world’s poorest people, but also present a fake climate change solution that hinders the growth of real solutions to the climate crisis.
https://watershedsentinel.ca/articles/biofuels-more-drain-than-gain/

The United States controls the global grain pricing power with the help of grain hegemony.

After learning about "Ethanol Fuel", I think food prices will only go up, not down, especially the price of maize.

Food loss & waste isn’t just about perfectly good food not making it to our tables, or the money we waste when it gets thrown out instead of eaten.
The real cost of food goes far beyond what we pay for it.
Stop food loss & waste. For the people. For the planet!
https://twitter.com/FAO/status/1550807185323544576

iyinborin:
An unprecedented drought in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia---part of a region known as the Horn of Africa---is pushing millions of people to the brink of starvation. More than 18 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, primarily as a result of the drought. In response, Administrator Samantha Power announced today that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing nearly $1.3 billion in additional critical humanitarian and development assistance to help stave off mass starvation and deaths.

Next time please help Nigeria.

International Rescue Committee (IRC) teams report that people have already started dying of hunger in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya; 20 million will go hungry across the region by September – with at least 3 million facing emergency and catastrophic levels of hunger, risking death; In 2011, 260,000 died of starvation – equivalent to 6.5 million deaths in the US.
https://african.business/2022/07/apo-newsfeed/international-rescue-committee-irc-warns-3-million-face-life-threatening-hunger-without-urgent-funding-as-unprecedented-famine-threatens-east-africa/

The impact of the drought on children is devastating,” said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Director for Emergency Operations. “In Somali region alone, over 900,000 people have been displaced. Drought not only means lack of water. It means that children are going hungry and thirsty every day. They are forced to walk miles in search of food and water and often they have to drink from contaminated water sources. This leads to malnutrition and other killer preventable diseases like diarrhea.
https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/unicef-emergency-director-manuel-fontaine-visits-drought-stricken-somali-region-and-calls-immediate-scaled-humanitarian-response-save-millions-children

For the first time ever, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is putting out a crisis alert to its annual Emergency Watchlist report. The IRC is calling for urgent action in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, with specific concern for intensifying famine in Somalia that has been dangerously neglected by the international community. By the time a famine is officially declared later this year, it will be too late to save hundreds of thousands of lives.
https://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/watchlist-crisis-alert-unnatural-disaster-east-africa

Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter was initially met with resistance.
https://radionigeria.gov.ng/2022/07/16/twitter-elon-musk-deal-explained

As much as 40% of all food in America ends up wasted. That’s more than 100 billion pounds, worth more than $400 billion, each year. Because it cuts into corporate profits, companies can treat it as tax deductible.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2022/07/14/food-waste-costs-us-taxpayers-billions-of-dollars-a-year/?sh=1d7eddad42ea

Olympic champion Mo Farah has revealed he was trafficked to Britain as a child from Djibouti. The war in Ukraine has deepened a food emergency that is affecting a staggering 346 million people in parts of Africa. And communities in Niger are ramping up training in farming and food production, hoping to take more of a lead in the response to the country's food crisis.
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/eye-on-africa/20220712-food-crisis-rapidly-deteriorating-african-continent-amongst-most-hit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijQQ4hsXNFw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQAYVCjA11c

I am hungry now. The food in our country is so expensive now that I can't afford it right away!

Not only the food crisis caused by war, but also the problems of climate and biofuels.

sorry