this is al jazeera, these, all the headlines authorities in counseling stone say they've detained the former national security chief on suspicion of treason. after days of prose violent protests, the catholic president has told russia's leader the situation if stabilizing open forest walker explains the significance of the national security chiefs dismissal. his departure to day really cements this idea that caused him. you're much so kind of the president of the cabin is, is purging the government, the system, the elite, of all those figures who owed allegiance to the former president nozzle turned as a buyer, but it's really quite an extraordinary picture. and it difficult to explain in a nick, but inside an enigma why this would would have happened. but this only explains the dog nature of cassock. politics, internal politics. court documents have reveal tennis. donovan, jock event tested positive for cove with 19 last month. lawyer say that's why he had a vaccine exemption to enter salia to play in the grand slam later this month. joke of inch is trying to appeal is the port ation order. he's now being detained in a melbourne hotel. bucky stones, interior ministry says at least 16 people have frozen to death as they tried to watch the countries for snowfall this month with winter. many in a northern region had ignored warnings, advising them not to go outside. india has recorded more than 840000 new daily co with 19 cases. and you 7 months high capital you daily is among the worst hit regions and it's under curfew. and that show up to date these, they were those insights story is next. ah good prices rose sharply in 2021 for you and says they were the highest in a decade worn. there are no guarantees. they'll fall this year and what's behind dislike. and what will it take to bring prices down? this is inside story. ah hello, welcome to the program. i'm kim vanelle. for many 2021 offered hope of some return to normality. but as countries pushed to reopen after months of locked downs and tightly controlled borders, economists began to warn of a new looming crisis. the rising cost of food for you and food agency says prices jumped 28 percent during the year, reaching their highest level since 2011. in december, they eased slightly, but before that had been climbing for 4 months in a row. the surge is being blamed on a number of factors including supply chain bottlenecks and increased costs for raw materials and energy. higher food prices contribute to higher inflation, which affects consumers around the world. the u. n's food at the agriculture organization tracks prices. it found that all categories showed sharp increases in 2021. crucial food, staples, like mays and wheat surged by at least a 3rd. the cost or vegetable oil hit an all time high, more than 65 percent on 2020, and sugar cost more than it has in 5 years. the u. n warns the situation shows no sign of improving this year and could force dramatic changes in the way people eat . as always, poor nations are disproportionately affected, especially those reliant on imports. the un says the region most at risk of famine and food insecurity is sumps a horrid africa with the situation getting out of control in places like the democratic republic of congo, nigeria, south through don and central african republic. and of conestoga, more than half the population is expected to face life threatening hunger this winter. food prices there have sort of aid is needed to save next year's harvest and in latin america. the pandemic has pushed countries like venezuela and peru even further into food insecurity. with significant increases in poverty and hunger . the, let's now bring in gas. joining us from cape town is jane that is the senior electra in the department of environmental and geographical science. the university of cape town in rome of the rest of the n, senior economist at the united nations food and agriculture organization. i don't scott, from new delhi is the percent hop. she's professor of economics at embed call university delhi a variable. welcome to each of you. thank you for joining us here on inside story. i'd like to begin with you about as a about the on just a point of view is what is it that has driven food prices? so holly, well as you nice and i guess summarize, there are, when you talk about prices, if you're wanting to measure of international prices going up international markets and compose of many commodities, each of them for different reasons. so it's been hard to say this is the reason for their meat went out for one reason or another did rise the increasing prices distorting. i would say during the last quarter in 2020, and then it continued continuously all the way to now. yes, there was a little bi line, as you also mentioned. also going to be defining during july, except those 2 to 3 months. you have every month going not quite ready to generalize. i would have said that the demand surprise is strong world world level despite health issue, despite that co rate and all the expect ation that perhaps countries will be important less and so forth. you know, really materialized, you may continue strong and supply side. we have few problems, especially for crops, this is week, a production short all the major exporting countries to blame. but also, you know, as you mentioned, that logistical issues, the combination of factors came to get on the supply side and made the surprise, the main situation tight for almost all the 4 or 5 category. now the issue is that it's been continuous, it's been going up. yes, you said that it was a little decline, but you would have expected that usually for the pressure down demand that was level but the whole situation. so you need to be prepared to use and i would say more. ok, let's cross over jane, by the way in cape town. jane africa subsaharan, africa in particular, as we discussed earlier, is one of the places most at risk of food insecurity. what impact to these high prices having there so much about it was already in crisis before the suit price increases. so we know that estimation, but about just the reference population already go hungry and the 3 quarters are unable to afford a nutritionally adequate diet. and so when you compound the impact of others, the price increases, we see the effect. and obviously a lot of focuses is on those kind of complex affected countries like softer done like contracts are public and we see critical food insecurity. so for example, a saucer done is estimated about 70 percent of the population will need food relief . however, i think we, we maybe get to hold up and those, those conflict perfect countries and failed and recognize the magnitude of the christ across country as a whole. and many, many households are kind of at the unaccustomed being for the food insecure and these food price increases will push them into that next, next crisis. before we move on and cross over to new delhi, i just wanna ask you for you is because you're off and we can, we can use java the and you know, we forget that, that not everybody uses this jargon. what do we mean by food insecure? so so students which is different to hunger. so food insecure is really that the uncertainty about where you're going to come from about being unable to access an adequate diet. so often it extends beyond based under and really age that, that challenge of getting a nutritious side of knowing where you're going to come from and having kind of rely them to why. and so we think about food insecurity is being based on is that food available? are you able to access that physically economically socially? are you able to utilize the foods that you get and is that system stable? recently i was also added on another to i mentioned by agency. so what kind of, how do you have in that system and how sustainable is do system that's providing ok . let's go up to new delhi d percent. how. what impact a these high food prices having in india and what was the situation like before? 2021 of subtlety 0. firstly, when we talk about the impact of inflation, india is in a slightly different space because we don't see any high field inflation here yet. as far as staples are concerned, that which is also because the means think concise and meet is insufficient in terms of production. so we don't depend on the boards and the production of these props have not been affected in the goal would years either. but for food such as sponsors and oil, india is also seen by the high inflation over the last many months. and these are ship compliments of diets in india as being the main source of protein as it belongs, being the main source of fact in indian dance. so that inactive and b, c a t in people's eyes, they are not able to consume enough of these foods. and this needs to be seen in the context of on food insecurity and my nutrition and india even before 2021. for long. we know that although india seen high levels of economic growth in terms of mine, in addition, we've not made much progress. and there's somebody that would suggest that 2 thirds of indian population could not afford the a balance diet before we began. and of course the band to make because of the lock down, somebody can only slow down be again, have a lot of evidence showing that the situation is worse. there are many more people have fallen below the poverty line and are not ira. what would, what you would define as being food insecurity. even the started so, sleeping hungry but not getting an adequate that. i thought about young, you mentioned demand and supply as, as, you know, sort of generalizing but, but 2 of the big issues at play. i was interested to read about the role of energy prices and, and fertilizer. because, you know, as governments spend money and, and energy prices go up when we, what impact is that going to have as we go head into 2022. yes. this is in fact the, the concern that we we rethink the community. surely we'll have to keep in mind for. ready that month, because usually the culture you do get high prices for one another but or the culture is, is quite, quite a strong sec foreman's go. best. high prices may be bad for consumers or producers and fall is differently. we try to make the best out of it, but this assumes that the cost of production is not going to go out as much or even exceed. in this case, there isn't much in terms of investing and increasing production. and this is always the danger. it doesn't happen often happens very back and just somehow confronted the situation where fertilize the prices are based on skyrocket. and for many parts of the world, farmers would say, wait, wait a 2nd, i'm just going to put that on the ground because it's just going to cost me so much . and my profit margin may, will be frank. so is not really a deal that would get that sort of the response that we would normally get in terms of increasing production. and this comes right at the time when you know, climatic conditions, extreme weather conditions as wrong time can really, really destroy, you know, let's say the prospects basically all the way up to date for the sake. so it is a warning situation. the price is high, surprised, barely adequate, and having some certainty about production. now, fertilizer is being high. parts of it is actually also energy price. actually, most of it is because of prices and gas prices and what happened to it. and this is just one aspect where energy comes into play, let's say we, the prospects that you're now, but also no other aspects of any of the industry, dependence on entities. huge no conventional so transport and so forth. and then there is no, no more than a decade a, a alternative way. probably you have different, we encourage it bigger production off. let's say it's an on biodiesel. so for, for a corner and, you know, from, from under agriculture, crops stop or production of biofuels. and that usually happens that gives us talking and stronger. the higher the energy prices go. which means that you also have that distraction, that we seem to be getting all of it. now, i'm not, i don't want to join very dark picture about this old thing. it's still time. we don't know exactly what the production solution is going to be just to. busy be a year to be true, but i think we need to be more careful than usually on it. because you're starting it after like 14 months of increasing prices and the information that i mentioned basically, procedures in many countries on top of completion is krisha is coming from basically all sides because of the cold weekend. ok, i want to pick up on something you said and cross over to jane bad as b, just mentioning the weather and climate change. what impact if any, has weather and climate change had on what we're seeing now in terms of, of the skyrocketing food process? it's, i'm heading across the board often trying to think about an individual country and it's climate dimensions. and so it's of africa. we've had regional droughts. we recently had a massive increase in tater prices simply because of a drought in a particular region in the country. and yet will experiencing the global so the, the very high oil prices, we, oil prices with experienced are the result of dropping the lexia. and so we need to think about how a globalized system is resilient and vulnerable to, to these some, these climate sharks. i think one of the questions we need to think about then is how do we make the system more resilient to these ongoing shots that are going to become increasingly present in our system than indeed are the lights. ok. so i want to ask you about china one analyst posited another potential reason for the rising prices. china is hoarding supplies. the u. s. department of agriculture saying, trying to is expected to have 69 percent of the entire world maze reserves in the 1st half of the crop here 2020 to 60 percent of its rise, 51 percent of its weak week. rather, what's your take is china also to blame? i think linking this also wanted to be this because say, i don't know what the topic children. we don't know the need that. but what we do know from i stay in india is that that is also the question, a who controls the whole system and getting into more global life. the going to be through all of these kinds of shots of the country making decisions or climate change in my part of the world affecting the bond or going up and so on. so i think all of this actually and the expedient to go to deal with the last 2 years and what it really wants us to is to ask questions on how to be moved to what's more decent life system like i was saying in the context of india inflation is in those cross which we import across which we had sent sufficiency in about to the back boxes and oil, for example. similarly in the base price and need because we have enough, it doesn't affect india, what is happening in other countries. so i would say, rather than me think it's time to look at a more decent life will system even within the country. it's been very centralized, national level, something that communities have control of families they do rises. and at the same time that the mix of the growth that i've been growing in different parts of the world is just to the local and my mentor, the local in my i know, and there's another example which has put forward which is katara during the blockade katara moved to become much more self sufficient in tombs, in terms of its food production. i'd come back to you about about the on what initiatives are there out there right now to try and ease? i know you don't want to be to doomsday, maybe north and impending crisis, but to ease the situation that we have now, you know, as, as jane was saying, your how do we make the food supply system more resilient? well, either way, you know, we've been trusting the markets and we, we paid, i think markets have more or less international markets have more or less believe it on, on what we expect, that the supply adjusted mom and so forth. we had issues back. you may recall from 891011 and a. ready lot of expert restrictions that interference in the market actually resulted in much higher prices. right at the time was a big issue. in fact the restrictions and rice exports. one reason today to be talking about high prices, what we don't see is sort of a crisis scale we saw last time. is that incidently rice's along the one of the very few countries are to come on that these are the prices spell in 2021 competing 2022, i think on average for the set. and that's what we're calling from india was comparing to depletion in india. the issue is because of quite an apple rice situation. so what i'm trying to say here is. ready that we learn quite a bit from the last and i think what we learned is that if you just go and ad hoc restriction measures and you are an important export, is bound to only create problems with the world level or below to actually create problem domestic the eventual per year are not going to benefit from the price. would not this fall, this very market approach has more or less worked quite well. and we hope that it could be sustained, and this could be in it, in itself a sort of at the international level. what has been happening since last crisis was the stablish moment of agriculture marketing formation system. i g 20 years also hosted radio. and actually one objective is that all the exclusions and importers will major ones are part of this group. they get together once a month to discuss world. we do discuss what's happening, the statistics numbers and also policy. and i think this is, this has helped us quite a bit, at least if nothing for coordination of the policy. i think this is probably just because one of the things that could be single out from the international side, helping to create a more stable, predictable markets. if i may just conclude on this, because china was mentioned in china, i just mentioned the statistics about china, but we have to be very careful. the u. s. number about reserves in china was interpreted in some corner, is trying to go to the market and bought all this things and kept 50 percent off the wall. but that's not what you meant and that's not the real situation. these stocks in china today need to present more than 50 percent of the global see are having a bad, a really low and those numbers are not official numbers because trying to does not publish them and beat us the us and other information sources. we don't have knowledge about the stocks not just for trying for almost no other country. so that is a reserve that has been carried over from one year to a know that doesn't mean he can be useful or he can just defend 2 people tomorrow. if you need china important in science and this year the beginning of the year, we saw prices went up last because of trying to develop the medical core demand for showing b. and if you mad for me at the very beginning of the year, because it be ok to pick 6, i hear i hear what you think. yeah, i hear what you're saying. i know this is exactly why we invite people like you on is to get to the bottom the all statistics like that, which on face value can be quite shocking. coming to you jane bed is be with talked about, you know, the macro level, the level of policy of government, of at a global level. but on the human level, when food becomes very expensive and the quality of the, you know, the cost of living is already very high. what sort of societal impact do you think we might see? i mean, we've seen process across the world. this year will last year and 2021 over the rise and called rising cost of living. i know that you can't simplify something to say, you know, food is expensive, therefore people are protesting. but do you think we might see a, you know, an impact society as a result of food becoming more expensive? absolutely, so we've been doing research throughout this, this time period, seeing seeing the impact of it on individuals and households and seeing how people are changing their diet, changing their food, pushing patterns, reducing the culture, but also the impact that it has on people psyche the impact that it has on social networks when they come to strain. and yes, long term we are seeing social protest. sometimes i'm not explicitly about me, but we believe our author based protests and to address this. but i think also part of the solution to these challenges. also, risks in understanding how people navigate these questions and see how people seek out these points of resilience. seek out the diverse students system, seek out the be kind of more social, less market based systems and seeing how to build visit in those systems may well provide us with a buffer to some of the worst excesses of the food crest price crisis is the moment the percent, i know that you are professor of, of economics. you're also a food security specialist. in terms of politics though, do you think that all eyes will now be on policymakers to get the right balance to find a way to, to lift economies post pandemic. but also ensure that the, the cost of food doesn't go up too much. absolutely. so even if you look at the last time when there was this kind of global completion of 2008, 9, the see what is called full driver. and many of the word analysts, or under protests, which were not about food. but many scholars have been linked to the fact that inflation in food items were high, which lead to a lot of discontent among people. there's nothing in it. i think now that kind of work that's even was concerned because given its own talk, beated, when people have been losing job incomes have been going down. and on top of that then full price is increased, then it's bound to become a social problem as well. and along with being the more electrical issue that you have to make on the one hand and on the other side, people are not able to not. so this is something that all governments will be questioned about and shouldn't be the only concern. it's unfortunate that many are still not seeing the crisis, but it is something that those dating very quickly we've got about 45 seconds left . it's a big question for a quick answer to you. deeper center. how do you think policy makers will respond in terms of you know, it's an opportunity to rethink how we do better, how we do better in terms of rising prices, how we do better in terms of supply chains? yes. so i do think it is an opportunity for us to completely lead pink our food systems, rather than having b solutions like in india, are now about 80 percent of the population being given, subsidized ice and beach, but that's not enough. what we need is a more in depth looking into the system by a diet, which means we're looking at agriculture differently. what i was saying earlier, thinking about a more be centralized system, but the idea of crops drawn in using a us, i think all of this can be done. there's a lot of research and ideas on how this could be a team, right? and this might be ok, we have to leave it there for time. thank you so much for joining us. all about yes, jane, bad as b a is a about the on and depressing. we appreciate it and thank you for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website challenges or dot com. and to the discussion, go to our facebook page since facebook dot com forward slash ha inside story. you can also join the conversation on twitter handle is a date inside story from me can been out and the whole team here. and uh huh. bye bye for now. a aah! along with from lagos, to jerusalem, to my am on the government. this plan for my own home mileage through my own history, my and background 3 short films that show how people take a stand against evictions and they're struggling in communities. the 1st time they arrested me. i was 11 years old, a j select on out his era i all of latin america for most of my career mil country is alike and it's my job to shed light on how and why. i'm in rural central to the quest for clean energy. a key ingredient for the production of electric car batteries, cobalt extracting it is dangerous, but profitable with global demand set to skyrocket. people in power investigates, claims that industrial mines extracting the precious material, needed for cleaner energy, are in fact poisoning the environment with dire health consequences for those living in their shadow. the cost of cobalt people in power. on a just either compelling journalism we keeping our distance because it's actually quite dangerous. ambulances continued to arrive at the scene of the explosion in spy program making. i still don't feel like i actually know enough about living under fascism was light. how much money did you make for your role in deliverance? i made fab al jazeera english proud recipient of the new york festivals broadcaster of the year award for the 5th year running the. ready hello, i'm emily, i'm going into these. the top stories on al jazeera was already in because it's done say they've detained the former national security chief on suspicion of treason after days of violent protests. because that president has told rushes later, the situation is stabilizing robin far thea walker has moved. this is major news. the arrest the chief carry mess the me of. why? because he is the old member of the old guy.

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