A famine catastrophe will break out in the next two years, posing the risk of unprecedented global political pressure, said director of the UN World Food Program Patrick Beasley, the Guardian reported.

Calling for short-term and long-term reforms, including an urgent lifting of the blockade on 25 million tons of Ukrainian grain, Beasley said the current food affordability crisis is likely to turn into an even more dangerous food affordability crisis next year if solutions are not found.

The number of people classified by the UN as suffering from severe food insecurity before the Covid crisis was 130 million, but this number has risen to 276 million since Covid.

In the preface to a new Blair Institute pamphlet on the looming hunger crisis, Beasley writes: That number has increased to 345 million because of the Ukraine crisis. 50 million people in 45 countries are now just one step away from hunger. The international community must take action to stop the impending famine catastrophe, otherwise these numbers will rise sharply.

Global food markets have plunged into chaos as price increases, export bans and shortages of staple foods have spread far beyond Ukraine. Countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and even Latin America are feeling the heat from this conflict.

Threats to global food security are exacerbated by turmoil in global fuel and fertilizer markets, Beasley said.

Without urgent action, food production and crop yields will be reduced. This raises the frightening possibility that, in addition to today's food price crisis, the world will also face a real food affordability crisis over the next 12 to 24 months, and with it the specter of multiple hunger.

Food prices reached a 10-year high in 2022, although there has been a slight decline in the past two months.

In his pamphlet The Global Crisis, Tony Blair told The Guardian that the food crisis now afflicting poor countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia “is absolutely likely to cause serious unrest in the same way as it did before the Arab Spring”.