Marcelo Gonzales is tired and angry about rapidly increasing living costs in his dusty village on Peru’s desert coast, where food and fuel inflation inflamed by the war in Ukraine has ignited protests that threaten to destabilize the government.
The social upheaval in the Andean country underscores how the impact of Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine is rippling around the world, with leaders in Sri Lanka and Pakistan also under public pressure over difficult economic conditions.
Inflation in Peru has reached its highest level in a quarter of a century, hammering people already hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic since early 2020.
“The cost of a family’s basic daily needs has brutally gone up,” Gonzales told Reuters, surrounded by hundreds of angry residents in the western village of Villacuri and where people from all parts of Peru come to work at the large fruit plantations nearby…. Read More Reuters
Food Prices Soar to Record Levels on Ukraine War Disruptions
Prices for food commodities like grains and vegetable oils reached their highest levels ever last month largely because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the “massive supply disruptions” it is causing, threatening millions of people in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere with hunger and malnourishment, the U.N. said Friday (April 8).
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices for a basket of commodities, averaged 159.3 points last month, up 12.6% from February. As it is, the February index was the highest level since its inception in 1990.
FAO said the war in Ukraine was largely responsible for the 17.1% rise in the price of grains, including wheat and others like oats, barley and corn. Together, Russia and Ukraine account for around 30% and 20% of global wheat and corn exports, respectively.
While predictable given February’s steep rise, “this is really remarkable,” said Josef Schmidhuber, deputy director of FAO’s markets and trade division. “Clearly, these very high prices for food require urgent action.”
“There is, of course, a massive supply disruption, and that massive supply disruption from the Black Sea region has fueled prices for vegetable oil,” Schmidhuber told reporters in Geneva…. read more Associated Press
