Two leaders of the United Nations Organization (UN) Yesterday they asked the member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) not impose restrictions on food exports to avoid the risk of a serious food crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The open letter it is signed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary General of UNCTAD, the UN trade and development body.
“The war in Ukraine is inflicting terrible suffering on the Ukrainian people and has increased the risk of hunger and starvation for tens of millions of people who are about to experience or are already experiencing food insecurity,” they wrote in a letter to UN ministers. World Trade meeting in Geneva this week.
They asked them to “refrain from imposing export restrictions on essential foods purchased by least developed countries and net food-importing developing countries, as well as food purchased by the World Food Program for humanitarian purposes”.
Food safety
The war in Ukraine has increased the concern about global food securityas the country’s Black Sea ports are blocked, preventing Ukraine, one of the world’s leading grain suppliers, from exporting its products.
One of the latest countries to adopt such measures was India, which announced a limit on its sugar exports from June 1, following the ban on wheat exports. Ukraine lost a quarter of its arable land due to the Russian occupation of some regions in the south and east, although it does not constitute “a threat to food security” in the country, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
The issue of food security is a concern that has been expressed in different international conclaves.