"Two to three years is a realistic timeframe for Gaza's economic recovery"
Under favorable circumstances, two to three years will be enough for the Gaza Strip economy to start functioning normally, Oleg Kobyakov, head of the Russian branch of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said in an interview with Izvestia. At the same time, a lasting peace must be ensured, not a temporary ceasefire. Food security is also affected by climate change. Not only South-East Asia and Africa, but also the leading European countries suffer from natural disasters. How the issue of blocked Russian fertilizers is being resolved, the threat to grain crops and the prospects for agriculture in Russia - in an exclusive interview with the Director of the Russian office of FAO.
"Agriculture demands peace."
- Armed conflicts are an extremely destructive factor for food security. How serious are the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, including for neighboring countries and regions, in terms of food security?
- Armed conflict is the main driver of hunger, the main barrier that prevents humanity from following the path of sustainable development. Other causes of hunger are disease, natural disasters, and economic shocks, such as rising energy prices. But since the beginning of the 20th century, armed conflict has been the main reason why hunger has not yet been eliminated. And certainly, both the Ukrainian and Middle East conflicts, a significant number of localized conflicts in Africa, smoldering and quite hot, aggravate the situation with food security. During wars, it is impossible to engage in normal agriculture. Agriculture requires peace. Not to mention that wars destroy human lives. The means of production, the fields, the harvested crops and farm animals suffer, and the threat of epizootics and epidemics increases. Wars tend to cause very significant forced displacement of civilians, who are thus deprived of their livelihoods, especially in rural areas. And their maintenance places a heavy additional burden on the areas or countries that shelter them.
The large-scale conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have certainly had a negative impact. Grain produced in Russia and Ukraine served as the main imported foodstuff in most countries - this is the north, center and south of Africa, Maghreb countries, Turkey, Egypt. And naturally, due to military actions, trade flows were disrupted. On the one hand, there were physical difficulties - with delivery routes, on the other hand, there were legal difficulties - because of sanctions against the Russian Federation. Russian harvests of recent years are very difficult to export: there is a physical danger of shipping. Freight and insurance have become considerably more expensive. If we imagine that now all armed conflicts in the world have ceased, we could quickly get on the path to achieving Goal 2 - to eliminate hunger (one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the UN in 2015. - Ed.) - if not by 2030, at least in the foreseeable future.
The ongoing armed squabbles in the Gulf of Aden with the Houthis also pose an obvious and acute threat to the safety of shipping, and many countries are forced to redirect trade flows to other routes. And every extra mile (grain is mostly transported by sea) means higher costs and safety issues. It is clear that it is more difficult to work in war than in peace.
- How does FAO assess the prospects for overcoming world hunger?
- FAO is not a political or politicized organization. We are engaged in purely technical assistance. We provide a platform for member countries to discuss agriculture, its development, improvement of people's lives, food safety. And, of course, when the UN and FAO were created, which are celebrating 80 years this year, the founding fathers assumed that there would be a lasting peace and under these conditions there would be a just world order, human rights and, above all, access to such basic resources as water and food. But we are not shying away from working towards these goals. In 2021, the UN held a World Summit on Food Systems, two years later there was a review summit, this year we are holding a second review summit - in Addis Ababa, in the capital of Ethiopia, a country that is periodically on the hunger map.
And of course we are optimistic and we will move towards our goal. Because when FAO was created, the world population was just over 2.3 billion. And after the Second World War, almost 800 million went hungry. That's one third of the population. Now 735 million are hungry, but with the world's population growing, that's one in 11 people, so the momentum is positive. And I believe that in the lifetime of the current generations, hunger will fade into history, just like the plague, cholera and other plagues that have haunted humanity.
"The first step is to prevent people from starving to death."
- The Middle East conflict has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. And more than 90% of its population is in a food security crisis. What should be the first measures to overcome this crisis, and how long will it take?
- The situation in Gaza is probably the largest and most acute humanitarian disaster, and it is concentrated in a very small area. Both the infrastructure and the main production facilities in the agriculture and fisheries sector have been destroyed almost completely. So the entire population is now hooked on the needle of food aid. And now the UN is implementing this program for the next quarter. The goal is to ensure unimpeded access to aid that goes through a limited number of crossing points. To feed 2 million people, of course, is very difficult. And there are different nutritional needs: adults, the elderly, people with chronic diseases, children, infants, nursing mothers and pregnant women. The number of humanitarian aid trucks crossing the crossings in the southern Gaza Strip is in the hundreds, and the queue is several thousand. And the average truck carries 20 tons of food.
The first stage is to prevent people from starving to death, and for those who receive the minimum, to improve their diet in order to maintain their immunity and allow them to produce. And the second parallel task is to rebuild infrastructure: clearing debris, setting up energy and water supply. So Goal 6 (Sustainable Development Goal - Ed.) is clean water and sanitation. The next stage is to ensure people's livelihoods. Since the number of livestock and poultry has been reduced. All small fishing fleets have been destroyed, which nevertheless provided livelihoods for fishermen and their families - about 100 thousand out of more than 2 million population. FAO recently called on member countries to help repair and purchase new small boats to rebuild fisheries.
Market channels need to be re-established and this requires finance. So the first priority for humanitarian agencies is to secure donor funds, such a pipeline. In all post-conflict reconstruction, there is a stage of emergency humanitarian aid, and there is a stage of recovery and transfer to our own rails. The sooner we get out of the crisis and the world community starts to rebuild Gaza and its productive potential, the sooner the situation will move to the settlement phase. This is not a matter of months, the count is going on for years. The speed depends on the reaction of the donor community and ensuring external security conditions, because there is no peace there, there is a ceasefire. Under the most favorable circumstances, two to three years is a realistic timeframe for the restoration of normal functioning of the economy.
- Fertilizers play a major role in the development and even more so in the restoration of agriculture. In this connection, I would like to touch upon the issue of Russian fertilizers blocked in European ports. We are talking about 100 thousand tons. Is this situation being resolved now, and what measures is FAO taking for this purpose?
- As far as I know, the World Food Program (WFP) is dealing with the problem of contacts and agreements with the authorities of the countries where these ports are located. And I do not have any recent information on unblocking. Therefore, we can assume that the issue is unfortunately frozen here.
The WFP deals with these issues because it has the most experience in transportation logistics. In fact, it is one of the largest logistics companies in the world. It has its own vessels and chartered vessels, a huge fleet of vehicles, and its own aviation. So given Russia's close relationship with the WFP and in terms of speed - and they are used to working under pressure and crises - this was assigned to the World Food Program.
"The average price index for 2024 is 2.5% less than the index for 2023"
- The year 2023 was marked by a decline in the world price index. What are the outcomes for 2024, and in which food categories are the main risks?
- The trend for 2024 has been multidirectional. We have had periods of growth. And significantly higher than similar periods. FAO measures the monthly value of the basket for five major commodity groups: dairy, meat, sugar, vegetable oils, cereals. During 2024, there was a fairly decent growth in dairy products, meat products and vegetable oils, while the cost of the same wheat, cereals, was falling at the same time. As a result, the average index for 2024 is 2.5% less than the index for 2023. That's a fairly significant figure. The highest rates were at the height of the pandemic, then with the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine - prices peaked in April. Since then, this index has been declining. We expect that the downward trend will continue.
- Food security is negatively affected by climate change, among other things. Which countries or regions are at high risk due to this factor?
- Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan are traditionally problematic regions in terms of floods or droughts - as a rule, these natural disasters succeed each other. Strangely enough, these are European countries: Poland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, France - in recent years they have been experiencing very destructive floods. And this again affects the harvest. The fact that the floods in Italy, for example, are absolutely egregious, as a huge number of people have died by European standards, shows how underdeveloped our system of prevention and information is. African countries traditionally suffer from drought, such as the Sahel zone, South Sudan, Somalia, Angola, Mozambique. Small island states, especially in the Pacific Ocean, are essentially defenseless against typhoons and tsunamis. With an average elevation of half a meter or a meter above sea level, virtually every major storm can completely destroy the entire agricultural infrastructure.
- And are there specific types of food, including among cereal crops, that could soon disappear due to climate change?
- Scientists have quite clearly identified crops that suffer from climate change, reduced precipitation. First of all, it is corn, because an increase in the average annual temperature by one degree in the main growing areas leads to a 7% decrease in yields. The situation with grain legumes is quite sensitive. In general, an increase in temperature and, as a consequence, a decrease in precipitation is now regarded as a negative factor. At the same time millet practically does not need artificial irrigation, tolerates drought and direct sunlight very well. Therefore, this crop has good prospects for cultivation, including in Russia. The traditional area was the south of the Volga region and Transbaikalia. Now it is expanding, going up the Volga River to more northern regions. It is worth noting that a third of millet grown in Russia is exported, and this commodity is duty-free.
"Of course, it has become more difficult to work
- Is the current turbulent geopolitical situation affecting FAO's work? Are there any difficulties for the Russian branch?
- Of course, as a broad-based international organization, all UN countries are represented. And among them there are states that are quite sharply critical of Russia's actions in Ukraine. FAO has always been characterized by an atmosphere of cooperation, we even had a tradition of consensus, and very rarely there were votes. Now a strong negative background is being created.
Citizens of almost all countries of the world work in FAO. It is clear that an international employee, as we say, does not have citizenship, and Article 100 of the UN Charter explicitly states that in their work employees of the UN system cannot receive instructions from any state, nor can they receive instructions from management with the position of their state. Nevertheless, they remain citizens of their countries. And we feel that sometimes. With colleagues from those countries that now sharply criticize Russia, relations are more restrained. Of course, it has become more difficult to work. But it must be said that professionalism still prevails here.
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