Skip to main content
Knowledge4Policy
KNOWLEDGE FOR POLICY

Supporting policy with scientific evidence

We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.

Publication | 2022

An unfolding global hunger crisis?
 The developed world must share their grain reserves with countries in need instead of producing biofuels and meat!

This paper discusses the possibility that today’s food price crisis, in the absence of urgent action, might turn into a fully-blown hunger crisis in many parts of the world, creating a situation only comparable with the 1970s during which millions of people starved. The paper purposefully examines a highly plausible scenario that is based on a specific assumption: high prices for fertilizers and a possible scarcity of inputs, which might lead to a situation where the current food price crisis will turn into a crisis of availability of food.

The paper states that the most pressing immediate issue is to undertake a deeper assessment of how mineral fertilizer application shortfalls will threaten food security, which could bring about high mortality and civil unrest in the years ahead.