A grain shipment left the port of eastern Ukraine for the first time since late February. That ship, just today approved to head for Lebanon. This is a crucial test of a deal between Russia and Ukraine intended to alleviate soaring global food prices. This disruption to grain exports is hitting many regions particularly hard. Over 47 million people are globally at risk of acute hunger, according to the World Food Program. Colleen Kelly, CEO of Concern Worldwide US, discusses the state of the global food shortage andthe hunger relief efforts underway. 


Opening Bell

First Grain Shipment Leaves Ukraine's Odesa Port Under UN-backed Deal

So here to discuss is Colleen kelly ceo of concern worldwide, thank you so much for being here now. The impact of the past few months have decimated fuel sources and increased global hunger to a level not seen in decades. So what do you make of the state of the food shortage first of all? And how much does this have to do with the actual Russia war on Ukraine? Well, as everyone knows for the last four years, the Horn of Africa has been in a severe drought, the worst one maybe of all time and definitely since 1981, 4 years of no rain and that is causing failed crops, livestock is dying. So before any of this even happened with Ukraine, it was already a dire situation. So knowing that Africa gets about 40% of its wheat from um Ukraine and Russia and Somalia for example, gets 100% of its wheat from there. It's just making a very, very horrible situation even worse um, and is exporting more grain. The solution, do you think, well, you know, the problem is, you know, Ukraine was normally shipping out about six million tons of grain a month and right now it's at about 100,000 200,000 tons. So the problem is even if they got back to a normal supply chain of, of getting the wheat out of the country, it would still take a year to get back to normal or possibly longer. So, the problem is that one ship leaving monday going to Lebanon is not gonna be able to solve the crisis nor mitigate the impact in the next year. So where is that impact being felt the most and what are some of the most vulnerable doing to really combat this problem? Well the worst is in the Horn of Africa, you know, just because of this combination of the drought, all of the climate implications plus throw the Ukraine crisis on top of it. It's really causing this hunger crisis of you know 18.6 million people in danger of of starving to death. And actually there is a number coming out right now that a person is dying every 48 seconds and unfortunately most of those are Children Um with the livestock dying the prices of food um when 60% or more of your income goes directly to food, any kind of increase in price impacts it massively. So the hunger crisis again, which was already happening and bad is just only going to get worse because of the Ukraine crisis and it seems like we're not hearing enough about this problem, which is why I'm happy we're doing this story. Why aren't we hearing more about this issue and what can people at home do to help? Well, I think you know, because of the war in Ukraine, that's been a lot of the focus and of course you know what's happening there is a huge event in and of itself, the drought I think has been a while, it's been happening for years, It's escalating and I think now the word hopefully is starting to get out the funding needed. Um The U. N. Is saying $4.4 billion while you know the U. S. Has been very supportive sending money. I think the whole international community needs to step up and really had this off and not wait till it's too late. And I think the last time this happened if you come at it too far behind it's impossible to catch up in so many people died that we could have we could have stopped from happening. I know it's worse for some areas. I know that small region has already run dry on fuel and so what happens in this country specifically if this continues well like I said 100% of the wheat um for Somalia comes from those countries uh if they run out of fuel obviously that just makes getting any kind of aid virtually impossible. Um getting supplies in, getting aid in getting food out any kind of thing. So that of course would cause huge destabilization in the country and of course more importantly the deaths and more and more people so sad and I know you guys are doing what you can do a lot of work to help with combat some of these issues in the world. So can you tell us a little bit more about the work that concerned worldwide does and what resources you actually provide for others. Sure, we are in, in all of these countries that are being affected right now, in fact was just hearing from our people on the ground in the north of kenya today where the situation is just really horrible. Um we have been able to help about 2.5 million people so far and another 1.5 millions are doing as much as we can in the countries where we work getting nutrition assistance, food, sanitation, water, um just the drought, causing huge water problems, both for people and for livestock and of course, um all of this livestock dying affects everything for milk production and kind of the income of a lot of people who live there, people having to try travel 18 miles just to get water and of course that puts stress on families migration and people moving into other areas where there's maybe a fight for resources which causes another knock on effect of people migrating to find food and water. Wow well, we pray you guys can continue doing the important work that you're doing to help so many around the world, Colleen kelly ceo of concern worldwide. Thank you so much