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The geopolitics of hunger
April 19, 20226:00 p.m.
MADRID / ONLINE
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
6:00 p.m.
Free entry until the room’s capacity is reached.
In Spanish.
On Tuesday, April 19 in Madrid, journalist Mónica García Prieto and food expert José Esquinas will be delving deep into the causes and potential solutions to this serious crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. You can watch it live on our YouTube channel.
The war in Ukraine is having serious effects on Arab nations. As the world’s leading consumers of wheat, with major dependence on Russian and Ukrainian exports, their food security is at risk. In terms of quantity, the Arab world as a whole imports half of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia. Among the most dependent countries are Lebanon, Sudan and Egypt. In Somalia, which is facing the worst drought in four decades and a fragile government threatened by a Jihadist resurgence, it is estimated that famine could spread within a matter of months.
The conflict between Moscow and Kiev, strategic breadbaskets of the world, will undoubtedly lead to changes in the supply of wheat to the Arab region, with American, Canadian, Indian or French exports as more expensive and insufficient alternatives. Wheat price volatility and shortages will lead to increasing hunger among the poorest, thus contributing to food insecurity and social pressure, which in the recent past has led to rioting.
To delve further into the causes and possible solutions to this new crisis, Casa Árabe will be bringing together journalist Mónica García Prieto and food expert José Esquinas. Presented and moderated by: Irene Lozano, the General Director of Casa Árabe.
Mónica García Prieto is a freelance journalist. Her coverage includes the war in Chechnya, the US invasion of Iraq, the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war, the war in Syria and, more recently, the conflict in Ukraine. Her extensive career has been acknowledged with the Dario D’Angelo Award in 2005, the José María Porquet Digital Journalism Award in 2011, the José Couso Press Freedom Award in 2013, Julio Anguita Parrado Award in 2016 and the Cirilo Rodríguez Award in 2017. Along with Javier Espinosa, she authored the books Siria, el país de las almas rotas: De la revolución al Califato del ISIS (Syria, the Country of Broken Souls: From revolution to the ISIS caliphate and La semilla del odio. De la invasión de Irak al surgimiento del ISIS (The Seed of Hatred: From the invasion of Iraq to the uprise of ISIS).
José Esquinas (Ciudad Real, 1945) has a PhD in Agricultural Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and a PhD in Genetics from the University of California (USA). He has been the chairman of the FAO Committee on Ethics in Food and Agriculture, dealing mainly with issues such as genetic resources, agricultural biodiversity, international aid, environmental pollution and food price volatility. He has extensive experience in the field of preserving agricultural species diversity to help eradicate hunger.