The CGTN Think Tank held a virtual roundtable discussion today, on the topic, “Ripple Effect of Ukraine Conflict on Global Good Security,” at which Schiller Institutes Chairman Helga Zepp-LaRouche spoke of the necessity for a new economic and strategic architecture, and what food-relief measures to take on both an emergency basis and long-term development basis, including the launching of such projects as the Transaqua in Africa.
She spoke along with four other guests in an informal back-and-forth with moderator Xia Cheng, who introduced the topic saying, “We know that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has already worsened the global food supply, which, we know, was already a problem.”
Marcia Merry Baker, Agriculture Editor for EIR News Service, spoke of the global underproduction of food that predated the pandemic and Ukraine conflict. She stressed that national governments must resume their sovereign rights and responsibilities for food supply action, and collaborate on a world food production mobilization. We should be producing 4 billion metric tons of grains a year, not just the 2.8 billion metric tons of recent times, with millions going hungry, and starving. She referenced that we should carry out on a world scale the kind of transformation China has made in its own agriculture since 1978, with science, technology, and big projects like the South-North Canal.
Matteo Marchisio, Country Director in the Asia and Pacific Division at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), summarized how much Russia and Ukraine have provided to the world export supply of wheat, sunflower seed oils, coarse grains, and fertilizer.
Associate Professor Zhang Chuanhong, of the China Agricultural University, filled out the picture of the impact on MENA especially—the Middle East-North African region—of the scarcity of wheat imports, resulting from the Ukraine conflict, from the vantage point of improving agriculture and taking action. In her summation, she spelled out what nations can do, and called on people to be optimistic. She herself radiated that quality.
