China, Gulf countries must step up to avoid food crisis, officials say

More nations should step up and help the United States provide global food aid as prices skyrocket and vulnerable populations teeter toward famine, key officials involved in the global response to the food crisis told the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.

World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley told members of the House and Senate in two hearings that the U.S. assistance — $5.7 billion this year — was “absolutely extraordinary.”

“It’s absolutely setting the stage for the rest of the world to follow,” said Beasley. “Unfortunately, the rest of the world is not stepping up like it should. … China has only given us $3 million. The Gulf states, with unprecedented oil pricing, which is compounding the food crisis, should be stepping up in ways beyond anything we've seen before.”

Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that if the Gulf states would contribute more to the humanitarian response in Yemen, money from the international community currently being spent there could be directed to other crises. She appeared at a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee alongside Beasley and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

China is “not giving … at scale,” Power said, adding that high-interest rates on loans that lower-income countries have taken out from China are further damaging their ability to respond to rising prices. It also impedes availability of governments to borrow further and put in place social safety nets.

“Greater energy in that space, as well from Beijing, would make a huge difference for countries really finding themselves on the brink,” Power said.

Power echoed calls made during a policy speech Monday, in which she called on China to sign onto a global road map for food security launched in May at the U.N., lift export restrictions on fertilizer, and contribute some of its grain reserves to WFP. She noted that China gave $34 million during a 2017 drought in the Horn of Africa.

Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at the hearing that China could be playing a more productive geopolitical role when it comes to ending the food crisis, especially following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has hobbled food exports and exacerbated food insecurity.

“This is not benign neglect on their behalf. This is helping Russia's tactic at the end of the day of using food as a weapon of war,” Menendez said.

“Hunger leads to insecurity, which leads to people doing what they need to do in order to survive. And whether that be the mass movement of people to find a place where they can be fed, or to turn to entities and organizations that will take their hunger and their anger and use it in violent ways, this is a real challenge,” he said.

There are 45 countries that could be destabilized if trapped grain can’t get out of Ukraine to the global markets, Beasley said.

Extensive diplomacy has been conducted, including with the Russians to help increase the amount of affordable food reaching those who need it. Beasley spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week at a G-20 meeting in Bali, where the two talked “extensively” and had a “very, very frank conversation,” the WFP chief said.

Efforts from the U.N., brokered by Turkey, to open up Black Sea ports would be successful, he said. Beasley declined to provide specifics but said additional discussions would be taking place over the next few days.

Beasley said he was “cautiously optimistic” that there would be a signed agreement by the end of the week.

Adverse climate impacts are further hampering other countries’ ability to fill in the gap, he said.

India, where Beasley traveled earlier this week to meet with leadership, had anticipated “substantial opportunities” to work with WFP to provide grain to the agency.

“You cannot believe what the heat has done in India just in the past couple of months — literally has devastated their wheat production. So we now have that on standby because obviously, they’ve got to feed Indians first. We understand that,” Beasley said. “But this heat is impacting farmers in the United States. It’s impacting Horn of Africa, western Africa, eastern Africa, and all the places around the world. So we very well could have an availability-of-food problem next year.”