The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expected global grains production to reach a record level this year, but at the same time it warned of worsening food insecurity due to conflicts and drought.
The organization said in its monthly report that global food prices remained stable on a monthly basis in June, but they were down by 2.1% compared to the corresponding month of 2023, and by 25% compared to the peak recorded in March 2022.
It explained that the increase in the prices of vegetable oils, sugar, and dairy products compensated for the decrease in grain prices last month.
Fidaa Haddad, Chief Forestry Program Officer at the Regional Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for the Near East and North Africa said that rising temperatures are a major part of climate change and extreme weather phenomena that threaten food security for years, and despite their initial stability currently, It poses a major threat globally.
She added in an interview with Al Arabiya, "The state of the global climate, whose report was issued in 2023 by the World Meteorological Organization in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization, showed that the past eight years are on their way to being the hottest years ever, and this is confirmed by the FAO report and the report." The year 2023 showed that last year was the warmest with temperatures exceeding 1.45 degrees Celsius in the field of climate change.
She continued, "All of this leads to waves of heat, drought, and floods. These problems affect crop productivity, as they reduce production and may sometimes stabilize some prices, but the effect of this appears not in the same month in which the temperature rise occurred, but during the harvest period."
She pointed out that during the period of global warming between 1981 and 2002, there was a significant decline in the productivity of wheat, corn, and barley, and estimates indicated that had it not been for climate changes, global production of these crops would have increased by about 2 and 3% in 2002, but as a result of subsequent climate changes it turned out that they caused losses. It reached 40 million tons annually, with a value equivalent to approximately $5 billion.
The possibility of estimating the occurrence of significant declines this year has been ruled out as a result of the instability in the political and security situation in the regions that most produce these crops. For example, India, Pakistan and Africa are suffering from a decline in the yields of these crops despite their increase in other regions, but the effect of the imbalance has caused a threat to international food markets. It affected some countries in the field of food security.
She stated that it is expected that grain prices will continue to rise during the current year with expectations of a hotter summer, and most countries and regions will be affected. For example, the European Union is expected to increase its rice production, for example, by about 50% of last year’s production due to drought problems, but this affects Prices in other regions.
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