Hunger could kill more people than Covid-19 this year
- Covid-19 has exposed some of the world’s deepest inequalities: who gets to eat and who doesn’t
- By the end of the year, as many as 12,000 people could die a day from hunger linked to Covid-19, Oxfam says
The world is hurtling toward an unprecedented hunger crisis.
As many as 132 million more people than previously projected could go hungry in 2020, and this year’s gain may be more than triple any increase this century. The pandemic is upending food supply chains, crippling economies and eroding consumer purchasing power. Some projections show that by the end of the year, Covid-19 will cause more people to die each day from hunger than from virus infections.
What makes the situation unmatched: the massive spike is happening at a time of enormous global food surpluses. And it’s happening in every part of the world, with new levels of food insecurity forecast for countries that used to have relative stability.
In Queens, New York, the lines snaking around a food bank are eight hours long as people wait for a box of supplies that might last them a week, while farmers in California are ploughing over lettuce and fruit is rotting on trees in Washington. In Uganda, bananas and tomatoes are piling up in open-air markets, and even nearly giveaway prices aren’t low enough for out-of-work buyers. Supplies of rice and meat were left floating at ports earlier this year after logistical jams in the Philippines, China and Nigeria. And in South America, Venezuela is teetering on the brink of famine.
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“We’ll see the scars of this crisis for generations,” said Mariana Chilton, director of the Centre for Hunger-Free Communities at Drexel University. “In 2120, we’ll still be talking about this crisis.”