Cindy McCain: Ukraine war ‘forcing us to take from the hungry to feed the starving’

As Russia’s invasion hits Ukraine’s production of wheat, corn and other major exports, Cindy McCain, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, warned on Monday that millions in the Middle East and Africa could soon be on the brink of famine. 

“Putin’s war is forcing us to take from the hungry to feed the starving,” McCain said Monday on C-SPAN. “Rising prices force hard decisions to cut rations in some of the most desperate humanitarian crises in the world, including Afghanistan and Yemen.” 

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates as many as 13 million people worldwide could experience food insecurity as a result of the February invasion. More than 50 countries depend on Russia and Ukraine to produce about 30 percent of their wheat supply.

Ukraine is also a major provider of wheat for the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), which feeds 138 million people in more than 80 countries, including four “hunger hotspots”: Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.  

“Russia is bombing one of the major bread baskets of the world,” McCain said of Ukraine. “This war will further exacerbate global food insecurity by interfering with the upcoming planting season and the transport of food within the country.” 

The WFP estimates Ukraine’s grain supply feeds 400 million people in a typical year, but that figure is set to drop sharply due to the war, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has warned. 

According to the Department of Agriculture estimates, Russia will likely increase its annual wheat exports by 1 million tons, while Ukraine will likely decrease its wheat exports by the same amount. With the country’s Black Sea ports shut down, some Ukrainian farmers may plant crops better suited for local consumption rather than for exports. 

Dr. Jim Barnhart, assistant to the administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, told reporters on Tuesday that global food insecurity was an impending crisis long before Russia invaded Ukraine. 

The war has heightened existing roadblocks in the food supply chain, brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing humanitarian crises and worldwide fertilizer price hikes. Barnhart, who recently returned from Senegal and Niger, warned that “food riots” occurred in at least 14 African countries during the last global food crisis from 2007 to 2008. 

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Barnhart said. “Experience has shown that $1 invested in resilience efforts … can save up to $3 in humanitarian assistance down the road, so all of this helps to ensure that major shocks like COVID-19, climate change and conflict are not causing families to slide back into poverty and malnutrition.” 

McCain said the U.N. aims to “feed more with less” by providing vulnerable populations with the most nutritious foods. Infants and children are the first affected in most humanitarian crises, she noted, adding that the WFP distributes packets of high-protein nutritional paste to sustain babies in famished regions. 

“These are nutrients that we take for granted here in the United States because of course our children get them,” McCain said. “These kids can’t survive on just wheat and grain.”