The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need to strengthen vulnerable supply chains for poor countries struggling to feed their populations, AP reported referring to the head of the World Food Program David Beasley.

According to him, the pandemic has increased the pressure on supply chains that bring food to the hungry.

“We’ve got to continue to work the system, we’ve got to make certain that we are … less vulnerable to COVID type impacts,” Beasley told a World Economic Forum virtual panel. 

“If you think you’ve had trouble getting toilet paper in New York, because of supply chain disruption, what do you think’s happening in Chad and Niger and Mali and places like that?”

Beasley noted that the food supply system is not disrupted, but 10% of the world's population lives in extreme poverty and needs help from suppliers, and that the global pandemic has exacerbated existing issues.

Beasley said that “with 270 million people on the brink of starvation, if we don’t receive the support and the funds that we need, you will have mass famine, starvation, you’ll have destabilization of nations and you’ll have mass migration. And the cost of that is a thousand times more.”