MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. A third of the world’s population cannot afford high·quality food because of the West’s coercive trade practices, Kirill Logvinov, Director of the Department of International Organizations at the Russian Foreign Ministry, told a meeting of the Committee on World Food Security in Rome.

"I would like to draw your attention to the statement adopted two weeks ago by the Group of Twenty member states condemning the ‘weaponization’ of food through targeted coercive trade measures aimed at obtaining geopolitical concessions," the diplomat noted. "It openly acknowledges the disruptive nature of such measures for the stability of international markets, logistics, and the global trade system as a whole. One of the consequences of such short·sighted steps was the rise in food inflation and the unaffordability of balanced nutrition.

"About a third of the world’s population cannot afford high quality products, the cost of which has increased by 25% over the past five years."

According to him, unchecked food inflation "threatens the political stability of states, macroeconomic equilibrium, and social justice as a whole. It is unacceptable that, against the backdrop of significant achievements in economic, technological, and scientific development, more than 600 million people in the world still face hunger."