Talk:World food crises (2022–2023)

Needs Copy-editing

Why is “rising prices” a “CRISIS” since prices are made to go up with the growth of the economy ie 4% per year. Why are you using unfounded articles that have no basis in fact as a supporting reference creating DISINFORMATION. Example where are the actual “EXPERTS” in this article? Ukraine War to Compound Hunger, Poverty in Africa, Experts Say https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-war-to-compound-hunger-poverty-in-africa-experts-say/6492430.html

Anyone who has been following the Ukraine Russia event without bias knows President Putin made sure to continue food in allowing ships to pass through the ports and it was the USA that just blew up the Port Grain Storage like the submerged oil lines forcing and manipulating the other countries and now may cause real food shortages across the globe but who is paying for the grain even though the article puts a 5.1B figure on the value where is the supporting documentation or just another made up number to support how evil Russia is. So for several years since COVID everyone has said get seeds in, grow your gardens war and food shortages are coming but where can you actually get seeds now… Probably more USA manipulation but again just speculation and bias which is why we have references… VALID REFERENCES.

This is just WRONG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Attackgirl (talk • contribs) 15:56, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello,

As a new Wikipedian, I'm not sure how to do it myself, but this article needs to be marked for needed improvements to spelling, encyclopedic tone, etc. I've made a few minor fixes, but more are needed.

Also, there's some confusion around the use of 'crises' (as a singular) vs 'crisis' - I'm not sure if the article was intended to be named '2022 food crisis', but it's possible.

Thanks,

Chernorizets (talk) 05:28, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Never mind, added the copy edit tag. Still not sure about the title though. Chernorizets (talk) 07:20, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Illustrations

Why don't we have some price charts at least? There are also a lot of photos of grain terminals in Southern Ukraine damaged by Russian missile strikes but I could found free ones neither on Commons nor via Google. =( Ain92 (talk) 22:15, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

@Ain92 if you know how to create the graphs, that would be great! Unfortunately this is such an emerging trend, that most of the graphics are copyrighted by news organizations, Sadads (talk) 09:24, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

• I'm sure folks at Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Illustration workshop could make a much better chart in much shorter time than me. ;-) Ain92 (talk) 10:20, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Unclear where this article is heading in the longer term? Its focus?

I am unsure whether an article title of "2022 food crises" really makes sense in the longer term. So what happens when we start January 2023, we no longer update this article but start a new one called "2023 food crises"? If this one is specifically about the impacts of the Ukraine war and wheat exports in 2022 OK but I see content about climate change being added. If that is the case, this will be with us far beyond 2022. So I wonder if the article should be streamlined so that any content related to climate change is mainly at effects of climate change on agriculture rather than being here in detail as well. EMsmile (talk) 09:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

So you would probably frame it as 2022-23, etc or turn it into something longer -- however, for right now this phenomena (because of price skyrocket) is new, notable, and substantially different than the COVID era food insecurity. Streamlining right now would be premature, because this a temporal event made notable because of the War in Ukraine sparking a particular set of circumstances created by climate change and the pandemic, Sadads (talk) 09:16, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Think the idea of this page is sound. Eventually a common approach across "2007–2008 world food price crisis", "2010–2012 world food price crisis", and this page would seem appropriate. However, given the unfolding nature this is perhaps premature. 192.41.114.229 (talk) 13:11, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

As of July 1st 2023, are there still reasons for concern or can the subject be definitely put in the past? Trexerman (talk) 14:13, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I am still not totally convinced as it later might become 2022-2024 food crises, then 2022-2025 food crises (I think these higher food prices are pretty much here to stay with us for good). So eventually, I think this article needs to be renamed/reframed but I am happy to sit back and observe for now and see where it's going later. EMsmile (talk) 21:52, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Given the fact that in early 2024 the FAO reported a return to more moderate prices, it looks like the page should be renamed to "World food crises (2022–2023)" DancingOwl (talk) 13:42, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The sentence "In the years 1961-2022 the productivity of the global agriculture sector declined by 21%, due to climate change."

I wonder if the sentence "In the years 1961-2022 the productivity of the global agriculture sector declined by 21%, due to climate change." is strictly correct or might be misleading. I can only see the abstract of the paper where it comes from and there it says: "Our baseline model indicates that ACC has reduced global agricultural TFP by about 21% since 1961, a slowdown that is equivalent to losing the last 7 years of productivity growth. The effect is substantially more severe (a reduction of ~26–34%) in warmer regions such as Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. We also find that global agriculture has grown more vulnerable to ongoing climate change." So that is not the same statement as the one provided in the Wikipedia article. I am asking because when I worked with a content expert on effects of climate change on agriculture this statement did not come up but instead we found that for some crops there was a gain, for others there was a reduction and this depended on the climatic region of the world. So the statement seems overly simplistic to me. EMsmile (talk) 09:09, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to excerpt that section or do a better summary @EMsmile -- that section is not very mature, so could use a bit more thoughtful representation, Sadads (talk) 09:18, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to but don't have time at present. I just want to flag that the sentence is likely wrong, an over-simplification. I find it problematic as it's the very first sentence of the article. So I think whoever added it should investigate this a bit further. EMsmile (talk) 09:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this is misleading. Yields have increased dramatically (50-year period 1961-2011 animal product yields have increased by 163%, while crop yields have increased by 140% https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378015300327). While yields may have been higher without changes to the climate, this is uncertain and variable between locations. This overall context does not come across as currently phrased. PAlandus (talk) 13:22, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Impressive rise of pageviews

This article has a very impressive rise of pageviews since its creation, from zero to about 1000 pageviews per day. That's very impressive. I assume that is because it is linked prominently from the main page of the Ukraine war page? Or what search terms are people likely to use to find this article? I wouldn't have typed "2022 food crises" into the Wikipedia search field to find it. We should also link it well with the 2007–2008 world food price crisis article (and be inspired by the structure and content of that page), as that's the major previous food price crisis, right? EMsmile (talk) 09:29, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and "2010–2012 world food price crisis" PAlandus (talk) 13:23, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Balance of content on "Causes"

The causes section currently lists 5 topics (Energy crisis; Russian invasion of Ukraine; Effects of climate change; Supply chain failures; and War in Yemen). The actual content is however dominated by climate change. The order they list (energy crisis/Ukraine/climate change) is appropriate, but the length each is dealt with is not. The emphasis on impact of climate change seems disproportionate to the impact. For example, https://www.fao.org/3/cc0868en/cc0868en.pdf suggests a 0.6% decline in cereal output since 2021 (and a great output than 2020). The energy (and associate fertilizer) price rises hardly has much text, but some evidence suggests it is a major contributor to the food price rises.

The evidence of supply chain failures is weak (and largely based a well known polemicist, George Monbiot) and the war in Yemen has only caused issues within that country, rather than the global food price increases that are the topic of the page. I would certainly remove the war in Yemen from 'Causes' and consider reworking or removing/renaming the 'supply chain failures'.

Additionally, protectionist measures implemented by some countries (most notably India) in response to food price rises appears to be entirely missing. PAlandus (talk) 14:41, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I think these are very important points that PAlandus is raising here. It's a knee jerk reaction to make climate change squarely responsible for anything that goes wrong. In many cases when it comes to agriculture and food prices climate change just makes things worse but is not the prime culprit. I don't have time at the moment to work on this article myself but I think the people who set this article up or who've been working on it lately, should take these concerns into account and edit the article accordingly. EMsmile (talk) 09:10, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

A big missed issue is sanctions on Belarus, which normally supplies 20% of the world's potassium fertilizer (potash). People will say fertilizers are not sanctioned, but EU sanctions on trains, banks providing shipping insurance and bank payment systems effectively block exports via Baltic. Russia also usually exports potassium and NPK fertilisers and also has problems, despite the grain deal, especially with payments, which have to be done in cash dollars via a government shop in Istanbul.

If this isn't solved, it could be the 2022-2024 food frisis, and 2024 could be worst, as in 2023 there may still have been considerable phosphate (P) and potassium (K) in the soil from last year. Andyraytaylor (talk) 13:11, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi Andyraytaylor are you able to include some of this in the article (with suitable references) if it's not in there yet? EMsmile (talk) 11:10, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Overview paragraph

The paragraph "Overview" is outdated and drastically falls short, esp. in comparison to the introduction.

• Is it even still needed?
• Or the contents from introduction should be migrated?

David Schopenhauer (talk) 14:26, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi User:David Schopenhauer, I agree with you. I have merged it into "causes". I am not sure what you mean with "introduction"? If you mean the first few paragraphs of the article, that's actually not an introduction but a summary. It's called the lead: WP:LEAD. I am wondering if the section on causes should be swapped with the section on price increases? EMsmile (talk) 07:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I meant the lead (when literally translating the usual term of German WP).

Whether a swap is plausible, isn't clear to me. Depends on the coherence with other articles of this kind. Randomly, e.g. Sea level rise, "Causes" follows the description of the subject/issue first.

David Schopenhauer (talk) 09:44, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

"as of January 2023"?

Much of this needs to be updated. Vultur~enwiki (talk) 22:25, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, go ahead if you have time. EMsmile (talk) 10:26, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I do not have the correct current information, sorry. Vultur~enwiki (talk) 20:16, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Too many photos of the Russian invasion?

I wonder if we have too many photos in this article that are related to the Russian invasion? Is that still WP:DUE? Are we implying that the biggest cause of the world food crisis is the Russian invasion in Ukraine? EMsmile (talk) 10:06, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

It seems plausible* though how do you say what's most important? The conflict surely contributed to the energy/economic issues; they can't be fully disentangled as separate causes. Climate change is separate, but shouldnt be that dramatic over a 3-4 year period.

• The Black Sea area around the Russia/Ukraine border is a very important grain producer. Vultur~enwiki (talk) 22:12, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Suggesting to rename the page to "World food crises (2022–2023)"

Since the commodity prices decreased in early 2024, the crisis seems to be over, so the page should be renamed accordingly.

Any objections? DancingOwl (talk) 13:52, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Good point. Could you show a graph that shows the price decrease? The graphs that are currently in the article are a bit outdated now. EMsmile (talk) 21:32, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I looked at the numbers now, and turns out that the trend reversed and the numbers started to rise again in 2024, so apparently it's too early to say the crisis is over.

I'll revise the text in the article accordingly and add updated graphs later today. DancingOwl (talk) 04:24, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I just finished updating the charts - the prices have dropped significantly in comparison to the peak, and the commodity prices seem to have pretty much returned to the pre-crisis levels.

Judging from those charts, it maybe justified to rename the page after all, despite the moderate price increases for some of the food products in 2024. DancingOwl (talk) 18:47, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I had my doubts about this article's title and topic right from the start (see also above in the section "unclear where this article heading in the longer term")... Prices will go up and down in future, will we start a new article each time? I guess if this was a distinct crisis that was mainly due to the start of the Ukraine war, then it made sense to have this article but then it should perhaps "end" in 2023 or 2024. I am just not sure if each time there is a (somewhat prolonged) spike in food prices we want to create a new article again? Some of the climate change related aspects won't go away in future and will come back to haunt us, and agricultural production, time and time again... EMsmile (talk) 19:19, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

The problem is that this article appears to be a WP:SYNTH, because as far as I can see, there isn't a single reference that explicitly talks about "world food crises" that started in 2022.

In any case, 2022 seems to be the year of peak prices in food commodities, and the situation improved significantly since then.

So, unless there is a reliable source that still classifies the situation as global food crisis, the article should be renamed, in my view. DancingOwl (talk) 19:49, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree. - I wonder if the lead image could be made clearer by either shortening the time frame on the x-axis or highlighting the time period that this article is talking about? I am not good with modifying graphs but perhaps someone else is. I'll ping User:RCraig09 just in case he's interested in this. EMsmile (talk) 09:35, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Good idea - I'll prepare a new chart for the last ten years, so the time period in question can be seen more clearly. DancingOwl (talk) 09:59, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Done. DancingOwl (talk) 13:52, 27 November 2024 (UTC)