MOSCOW, 24 APR – RIA Novosti. The famine of “biblical proportions” in connection with the pandemic coronavirus does not threaten Russia, said the expert of the Russian Institute for strategic studies Vyacheslav Kholodkov.
Earlier, the Director of the world food programme (WFP) David Beazley said that if you don’t act now, the future of humanity could face a famine “of biblical proportions”. According to him, the 821 million people remain hungry every night worldwide. As pointed out by Beasley, 135 million people faced crisis-level hunger. On Tuesday, the world food programme in its forecasts, said that about 130 million people worldwide by the end of 2020 will starve due to the effects of COVID-19.
According to experts, this statement is “alarmist nature” and relates only to the poorest countries of Africa and Latin America.
“Hunger in the biblical sense in our country will not be exact,” said Kholodkov RIA Novosti. According to him, Russia and practically all post-Soviet countries self-sufficient in food, that is, produce enough for themselves food. “In Russia the vast majority of products – meat, dairy, vegetable origin, cereals – the self-sufficiency of around 95%. The only goods for which we have no self sufficiency in the milk, salt and a couple of products, but it is absolutely not critical. Moreover, we have close ties with Belarus, which produces quite a lot of dairy products,” he said.
in addition, it should be borne in mind that the Union decided to ban exports of some food commodities, particularly wheat, said the expert. “In these circumstances, of course, the physical hunger will not be”, – he stressed.
While chills, did not exclude effects of a different kind in connection with the pandemic coronavirus. “It’s not physical hunger, not physical lack of food and economic shortages. This means that in connection with the coronavirus and well-known events in the economy, lower oil prices will worsen the financial situation of many segments of the population and will suffer the most needy categories of citizens”, – said the expert. That is, according to him, many will not be able to provide yourself with a balanced diet and will be forced to go with “poor” food products.
as for the “economic” hunger in the world practice has worked out ways of dealing with it, pointed out chills. “Free coupons for food, free school meals, distribution of free food packages – these methods will help the people to survive this difficult moment”, he concluded.
the Latest data on the situation of COVID-19 in Russia and the world presented on the portal stopmanager.of the Russian Federation.
