ROME, May 3. /TASS/. Around 258 million people in 58 countries and territories faced acute food insecurity at crisis or worse levels in 2022, up from 193 million people in 53 countries and territories in 2021. This is stated in a report the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published on Wednesday.

"The number of people experiencing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food, nutrition and livelihood assistance increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2022 <…> Much of this growth reflects an increase in the population analyzed. In 2022, the severity of acute food insecurity increased to 22.7%, from 21.3% in 2021, but remains unacceptably high," FAO notes.

Some 376,000 people experienced the most severe food insecurity in Somalia (57%), Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.

FAO notes that in seven editions of its report, 38 countries were consistently listed as food crises. An important detail is the protracted nature of many of these food crises.

FAO estimates that the largest food crises in 2022 were in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Yemen, Myanmar, Syria, Sudan, Ukraine and Pakistan.

Experts emphasize that conflicts remain the main cause of food crises.

"Economic shocks have surpassed conflict as the primary driver of acute food insecurity and malnutrition in several major food crises," the report says.

The report confirms that the conflict in Ukraine "had an adverse impact on global food security due to the major contributions of both Ukraine and Russia to the global production and trade of fuel, agricultural inputs and essential food commodities, particularly wheat, maize and sunflower oil."

The Ukrainian crisis "disrupted agricultural production and trade in the Black Sea region, triggering an unprecedented peak in international food prices in the first half of 2022," FAO says.

The organization’s experts note that "while food prices have since come down, also thanks to the Black Sea Grain Initiative," the conflict "continues to affect food security indirectly, particularly in food import-dependent, low-income countries, whose fragile economic resilience had already been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.".