this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023

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UN says Africa faces unprecedented food crisis, with 3 in 4 people unable to afford a healthy diet (english.elpais.com)

submitted 9 months ago by boem to c/world

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[–] ABCDE 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2oL5yhRMbA

This scale helps to see the effect.

https://youtu.be/s_LxzxPkUZY?si=w5RPg9xUS0ADf812

Africa is by far the most represented by poverty (including food security or lack thereof). Poverty affects women more, with female heads of household poorer than male ones, and just over 70% of poor women in the Arab world not completing six years of education.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=A2oL5yhRMbA

https://piped.video/s_LxzxPkUZY?si=w5RPg9xUS0ADf812

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

"UN says USA faces unprecedented food crisis, with 3 in 4 people unwanting to afford a healthy diet"

[–] Crampon -5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Africa went from a population of 228 million in 1950, to 1460 million in 2023.

There is no food shortage. If they have sufficient food for 1095 million people they have way more food available than Europe with its 742 million inhabitants.

Politics on the continent is the central issue. Not how other continents can give more free food which stimulates further population growth.

It's not colonization of the continent fra fucked it up till today. Other nations on different continents have made it just fine. Multiple times. Even Norway was under a 400 year occupation by Denmark.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, that notorious occupation where Denmark systematically raped and murdered all those Norwegians, installed a corporate kleptocracy to ransack their natural resources for the profit of people half a globe away, and then spent the next 400 years funding coups and dictators to maintain that corporate control.

I don't understand the level of ignorance required to even begin to pretend like these were equivalent situations.

[–] Crampon -1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Absolutely missed the point.

Would gift you platinum if possible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Platinum! 😂

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Thank you for acknowledging that I am correct.

[+] burchalka -17 points 9 months ago (6 children)

How come that whole continent, which is the birthplace of homo sapiens, can't feed it's population?

[–] MindSkipperBro12 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Probably from the Europeans pilfering their lands for almost a century.

Damn Euros.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

The hit on world grain supplies from Russia’s war in Ukraine compounds the ills of African conflicts, climate change and the aftereffects of the Covid-19 pandemic

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

More than a century, and they continue to exploit developing countries still now... hope the EU will refund and repair the damages of colonialism and, if they don't do it willingly (from time to time a proposal at the European Parliament goes in that direction but is abandoned afterwards) that they will be demanded to!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Even if Europe never offers any refund or repair, Africa would still be much better off if only the neocolonial West, Russia, and China would just stop interfering in African nations and exploiting them.

[–] WhiteHawk 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why would that be the EU's responsibility? Most of its members never were colonizers.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ok so just Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Nederlands and Denmark. Agreed! Hope to see that happen, though.

[–] WhiteHawk 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Don't hold your breath lol. Btw did you just forget about the biggest colonizer of them all because they're not in the EU anymore?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Yes I was thinking of the EU members only because the UK won't be affected by any directive of the European institutions.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The war in Ukraine kind of showed us all what happens when a house of cards starts to collapse. Countries dependent on each other for various resources (fuel from russia to the west for example) was something people thought nobody would cease because of the self harm imposed were the fuel to stop flowing. But then we get Putin thinking he is all big and bad and suddenly the oil stops and the house collapses. Countries from Africa aren't magical. They work the same way.

Then you get the impact of Ukraine (known as the bread basket of Europe) suddenly being unable to supply the food it once could. So you get countries that once relied upon these sources being required to source it from elsewhere.

example;
About 6.26mn t of Ukrainian wheat was exported to Africa in the 2021-22 marketing year (June-July), accounting for nearly 12pc of African wheat imports. Egypt was the largest buyer, having purchased about 2.82mn t, followed by Tunisia and Morocco with 634,000t and 596,000t, respectively. In 2020, 15 African countries imported over 50 per cent of their wheat products from the Russian Federation or Ukraine. Six of these countries (Eritrea, Egypt, Benin, Sudan, Djibouti, and Tanzania) imported over 70 per cent of their wheat from the region.

At least this is my laymans understanding. Oh found this too. https://www.ifpri.org/blog/west-africa-faces-mixed-food-security-impacts-russia-ukraine-conflict

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Russia is also the world's largest (?second largest?) producer of fertilizer, which has also caused shortages.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Global climate change and the all the plants and animals that have gone extinct makes Africa a different place than it was when hominids first evolved. And the population sizes were on entirely different magnitudes pre-agriculture. And even then, when they did start spreading, many of them starved or died from other things we would consider preventable in modern contexts.

So whether or not people are currently dealing with food insecurity in Africa has pretty much nothing to do with where humanity evolved from. The explanation for what is going on, even though we have agriculture and could feed everyone, is colonialism.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

European colonialism (and neocolonialism) putting absolutely fucking horrible governments in place.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Unequal distribution of the world's resources, exploitation, the Resource Curse (which leads to external input fuelling wars), climate crisis.

[+] chitak166 -6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Slavery. Africans sold themselves out and are still facing the repercussions.

Rather than work together to build wealth and value in their society, they just conquered whoever was the weakest and sold them into slavery.

[–] YoBuckStopsHere 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Warring tribes in Africa sell their captives to the Dutch, true.

European powers have a long history of exploiting African resources and have purposely kept those people in a position to be unsuccessful.

[–] chitak166 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yes, Europeans are absolutely not exonerated for taking advantage of African slavery.

It's a shame that such a naturally-rich continent has been existing in relative poverty for so long.

It also goes into how uhh, people have mentioned that economies built around raw materials aren't as wealthy as those who refine and develop those materials.

I think, though, that is all goes back to slavery. It's easier to exploit low-skilled harvesters than high-skilled refiners/implementers.