Enlarge image
Wheat harvest: »Putin deliberately uses hunger as a weapon«
Photo: Bernd Wüstneck / dpa
The development ministers of the G7 countries have agreed on an alliance to enable global food security.
This is reported by the dpa news agency, citing insiders, after a meeting of ministers in Berlin.
The alliance is to organize both the financing and the cooperation of the states in supplying the world's population.
This is endangered, also because of Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine.
more on the subject
Export stop from India: Wheat price rises to a new record
Ukraine is considered the granary of Europe.
Many countries, including countries in Africa and Asia, depend on cheap imports from Ukraine.
However, Russia is blocking shipments of wheat from the country by ship.
This dynamic is exacerbated by India's wheat export ban.
Recently, the price of wheat rose to a record high.
"The terrible consequences of Russia's war of aggression go far beyond Ukraine," said Development Minister and hostess Svenja Schulze (SPD) in the run-up to the agreement on the alliance.
"There is a risk of famine because Putin is using hunger as a weapon." Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) also accused Russia of fueling a "global food crisis" with the "grain war."
Schulze proposed the Alliance for Food Security together with World Bank Director David Malpass in April.
At the beginning of the year, Germany took over the one-year presidency of the G7 from Great Britain.
The food alliance led by Western countries is also seen as a reaction to a diplomatic vacuum.
Actually, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has a global mandate for food and agriculture, but it is led by a representative of China.
China does not position itself on the side of Ukraine in Russia's war of aggression.
jlk/dpa
