German food minister says Western countries need to send more weapons into Ukraine to avert a global famine: report

• Germany’s agricultural minister reported Ukraine demands to be stocked with weapons to keep away from a world-wide famine.

• Foods Minister Cem Özdemir urged Western nations to maximize arms to Ukraine, per German information outlet WAZ.

• He stated Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging a “hunger technique” on the agricultural landscape.

Germany’s agricultural minister warned of the opportunity for a worldwide famine if Ukraine does not receive additional weapons from Western nations around the world.

According to Food Minister Cem Özdemir, Russian troops are wreaking havoc on the world’s agricultural supply, he told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ), a German newspaper, in a report posted Sunday.

“Russia’s war versus Ukraine is increasingly turning out to be an assault on the international neighborhood,” he explained. “That is why it is so important that the West supports Ukraine with extra, a lot more powerful weapons — and Germany shouldn’t be exempt from that.”

Özdemir informed WAZ that Germany has received see that Russian troops, at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s command, are “intentionally destroying agricultural infrastructure and source chains.”

If they continue on to damage the agricultural landscape in Ukraine, there could be devastating repercussions on the earth offer chain of foods, he explained to WAZ.

He characterised the operation to wipe out Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure as Putin’s “starvation system,” and urged global businesses, this kind of as the United Nations Globe Food items and Agriculture Committee, to again him.

“Right here we have to agree on basic, structural thoughts of agricultural and foodstuff policy around the world,” he said, according to WAZ.

Russia and Ukraine engage in pivotal roles in the grain marketplace. Ukraine is a important exporter of equally wheat and corn, accounting for 12% and 17% of worldwide source, respectively. And Russia’s wheat exports account for pretty much 17% of world source, Insider’s Urooba Jamal notes. Because Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, food costs have started to soar.

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“Shortages of these commodities and broad-primarily based boosts in prices could incorporate to inflation pressures and meals insecurity,” a Environment Financial institution spokesperson advised Insider.

The possible outcomes have worried economists in the United States, who are shelling out near awareness to any reverberations from the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Bart Watson, chief economist at the Brewers Association, for example, advised Insider he is looking at out for how barley will impact the beer source in the US.

“Ukraine and Russia together generate about a fifth of the world’s barley,” Watson said in an interview with Insider.

Craft brewers in the US usually are not majorly dependent on Ukrainian barley. “But these are world wide marketplaces,” Watson explained. “So what transpires to the market place when the international locations that would usually obtain these exports from people nations around the world are unable to, is the large unfamiliar. Are they able to pivot to other items or resources?”

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