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| FAO/IFAD/WFP/Michael Tewelde. In 2019, Ethiopia experienced the fifth-worst food crisis of all the countries on earth. |
As the coronavirus death toll approaches 200,000 and more than 2.5 million confirmed cases, understandably the world is looking away from a global humanitarian catastrophe of Biblical proportion happening elsewhere. A deepening crisis is exploding in many parts of the world as more frequent natural disasters and changing weather patterns along with poverty and conflict. According to a new report from the World Food Programme (WFP) the world is facing a perfect storm. 135 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger or worse, coupled with an additional 130 million on the edge of starvation prompted by Coronavirus.
To make matters worse farms and food production businesses are struggling to stay afloat due to Covid-19. Crops and animals are being destroyed due to virus restrictions. With an extra billion mouths to feed the vision of the rest of 2020 is a very frightening picture, however, the problem did not begin this year, the problem escalated last year.
Back in 2019, a crisis emerged across three continents as extreme weather conditions and disease began to bite the farming industry leaving world banks warning the 2020s would be a decade of dramatic economic and social upheaval as another billion mouths will need to be fed. This statement, of course, was made well before the coronavirus had jumped from animal to human, (or from lab to human.)
