Enjoying the New World Rules-Based Order? Food as a geopolitical weapon in an age of starvation

Start planning your gardens for spring. I got 60 lbs of potatoes from planting six pounds last summer.

https://www.devex.com/news/food-as-a-weapon-in-the-new-age-of-starvation-107206

The United States’ action is aimed at giving the World Food Programme leverage as it seeks to persuade the Houthis to relinquish some control over how aid is delivered on its territory and permits the U.N. to refine its list of beneficiaries to ensure that food goes to those with the greatest need. Those negotiations have dragged on for more than a year.

Frustrated with the pace of talks, the Rome-based food agency in December suspended a general food program that once targeted more than 9 million people in northern Yemen — though it continues its nutrition and school feeding programs. Still, the cut in wheat, oil, and other staples has exacted a high cost for millions of Yemeni civilians, who have been caught in the middle of a geopolitical food fight, forced to endure months of survival with less and less sustenance.

“The impact of the suspension is already affecting over nine million people, the majority of whom are in the northern area under Houthi control,” said Abdulwasea Mohammed, a Yemen-based representative for Oxfam, noting it has had a rippling effect across the local family economy, meaning money previously used to pay other household expenses and debts goes to food.

“It’s a daily struggle. I have been in different places in the north where people are now reducing how much they eat on a daily basis, giving priority to kids, and the most vulnerable, while they go to sleep on an empty stomach,” he told Devex by telephone….

Long article. Go here for the rest.