HSA Group – Yemen’s largest company and the country’s leading wheat importer – has issued a stark warning that time is running out to avert a potentially catastrophic famine from spreading across Yemen, as a result of unprecedented disruption to global wheat supplies generated by the fallout from the conflict in Ukraine.
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Global wheat prices are set to rise further due to the export ban on Indian wheat that came into effect just two days ago. Without urgent action, the latest developments have the potential to push Yemen’s ongoing food security crisis to the point of no return. Yemen needs extraordinary measures to maintain an uninterrupted supply of this daily staple to communities and aid programmes before it is too late for hundreds of thousands of people.
HSA Group has written to leaders in the international community raising alarm that hundreds of thousands of Yemenis across the country are set to experience extreme hunger in a matter of months, in light of escalating global wheat prices, dwindling wheat stocks in the country, and the Yemeni private sector’s diminishing purchasing power that is preventing sufficient supplies of essential foodstuffs from entering the country.
The company has called on the international community to put in place emergency mechanisms to stave off a further humanitarian crisis, such as creating a special import finance fund that would enable Yemen’s wheat importers to rapidly access finance and working capital to fund wheat purchases on the global market and to cover the significant cost of importing food products into Yemen; and extended payment terms for Yemeni food importers in their dealings with international suppliers, to help secure and fulfil commercial contracts that are critical in ensuring a steady supply of foodstuffs to Yemen.
The conflict in Ukraine has caused huge shockwaves across global commodity markets – most notably impacting wheat supplies. Global wheat prices have recently reached a 14-year high, which is already having massive consequences for suppliers and manufacturers across the world.
Yemen purchases approximately one third of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia. The loss of such a significant proportion of the country’s source of wheat, which is relied upon for communities that are already on the brink of famine to produce daily staples, such as bread, will exacerbate the effects of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.