UN warns of risk of massive food crisis if blockage of Strait of Hormuz continues

If the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz continues, 45 million people are threatened by hunger. This is the cry of alarm launched by the head of a UN working group on Monday May 11. Oil is not the only product to pass through this essential route of world trade, there are also chemical fertilizers. A third of all fertilizer transported by sea passed through Hormuz. This major disruption of the supply chain therefore risks leading to a major humanitarian crisis.

According to the UN, we only have a few weeks to avoid disaster because it is from the beginning of June that the crops will need fertilizer. Agriculture has its calendar which cannot be modified or pushed back, but without fertilizer, yields will collapse and there are no stocks.

The shock therefore promises to be major according to the head of the UN working group set up at the end of March to obtain the unblocking of the strait. “When the crisis broke out, we knew that a few countries would be affected, particularly in Africa and South-East Asia. Today, the situation is much worse, because the entire fertilizer market is disrupted,” déclaré Jorge Moreira da Silva to the AFP.

“So if we don’t quickly put an end to the origins of the crisis, we will have to manage the consequences through humanitarian aid.”

Jorge Moreira da Silva

à franceinfo

Except that a large-scale food aid operation which would begin at the end of the year would undoubtedly cost several billion dollars. It would be the same thing if it were necessary to set up an emergency subsidy program. The simplest thing is to let the boats loaded with fertilizer, ammonia, sulfur and urea pass, especially since hundreds of them are not needed, explains Jorge Moreira da Silva. ‘We would need on average five ships per day. It is a simple mechanism from a logistical point of view. And we have experience. In seven days we can implement it. So, we are ready. What is missing is the political will“, he explains.

The UN says it is fully aware that all goods must be able to circulate freely, not just fertilizers, of course, oil too. But there is urgency if we want to avoid a massive food crisis. An additional 45 million people worldwide would be affected by acute food insecurity. We are talking about Asia, but Africa is particularly concerned, because in the poorest countries of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, sowing begins in June and the window for action is therefore very short.

Given the incompressible delivery times, the date of May 15 appears to be a deadline by which fertilizers can be loaded onto a boat in the hope of arriving on time. Beyond that, the consequences for this year’s harvests will be irreversible. Corn, rice, peanuts or sorghum, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), certain cereal yields will be halved from this summer. To make matters worse, scientists assure that the planet risks being hit this year by a super El Niño phenomenon with extreme heat and drought.