00:00 Speaker A
Now we have the war in the Middle East, oil prices have gone up, pushing up inflation around the world. Like what has that done to humanitarian efforts and theoretically, it is putting a lot more people or just not letting them get the food they need to survive.
00:24 Speaker B
Well, um you know, it’s many organizations, UN, others that they are more uh government organizations. Obviously, the USAID disappearance is doing a huge damage to hunger around the
world, the soft, the soft diplomacy that USAID was for the America, American American people, I don’t think America is aware all the good we were doing in so many places. Um so USAID missing in action is really putting a very big a very big uh pressure on many countries that they are going through mayhem and now they don’t have the funds uh to do it.
01:28 Speaker B
Uh we see that the uh humanitarian donations are going down um in a big percentage.
01:40 Speaker B
And organizations like us, World Central Kitchen, um we are mainly supported by people. Uh in Gaza alone, we are spending like a million dollar a day.
02:00 Speaker B
Uh the price, the cost of food is going up for different reasons because the transportation itself, but because the foods are going up, because uh the fertilizers are going up, and the more goes up is the less money at the end we have to feed and the people. So, what is happening right now in the straight of Hormuz is directly indirectly already affecting and will affect even more. I’m very worried for a very a bigger hunger towards the end of this year, beginning of 2027.
02:37 Speaker A
Just because of inflation, every price has gone up.
02:39 Speaker B
It’s not only the inflation, but just the cost of fertilizers. As we speak, that we forget that gas is more than the fuel that move our cars. It’s also we make important fertilizers that without them, the output of food will decrease uh in a in a bigger percentage that anybody think.
03:08 Speaker B
And therefore, uh food is not something like you can switch overnight. It’s not like you say, I want food tomorrow. No. Uh it takes it it takes long time to bring one seed from the ground to become food that can be used uh to feed humans. So, we saw it in Ukraine when the war began that was restraints on the shipment of uh of food from Ukraine that feeds closely to 500 people, 500 million people around the world.
03:59 Speaker B
And when Russia closed all the Odessa and all the ports, uh that uh the shipping was the way to be exporting all that grain to countries like Africa. Another conversation should be why Africa is not producing their own food. But still, Ukraine is a big uh producer of food. Ukraine has no issue of food. Uh we are there because it’s infrastructure that we help to maintain.
04:26 Speaker B
But the production of Ukraine without that food, Africa will be going hungry. So, in a way Ukraine is not only fighting a war to uh liberate themselves and regain their have their democracy and regain their terrains, but in a way they’re fighting a war to make sure that the world keep being fed. So you see, food is one of the most fascinating geopolitics issue that almost nobody’s talking about.
