Ukraine's triple emergency: Food crisis amid conflicts and COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract Globally, both Russia and Ukraine play a key role in food production. Both countries are known for their meticulous positions in producing and exporting wheat, maize, sunflower seed oil, and cotton seed oil. Although the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been going on for more than 5 years, the recent invasion of Russia in Ukraine has endangered food security in Ukraine during the COVID‐19 pandemic. As COVID‐19 cripples the healthcare infrastructure of Ukraine, food insecurity challenges the civilian population to migration. As the conflict intensitifes, damages to properties, loss of lives, rise of infectious diseases, incremental rise in energy prices, and fuel consumption are some of the possible consequences. This commentary aims to highlight the different ways in which access to food has been endangered, the implications that food crisis has on the world, and thus provide key recommendations on what needs to be addressed to mitigate the rising risks of the food crisis in the world.


| INTRODUCTION
Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe after Russia, with a total area of 600,000 km² and a population of 43.2 million people.
Ukraine accounts for about 17% of global corn exports, 12% of wheat, and 30% of sunflower seeds, most turned into oil in Ukrainian factories. 1 In addition, Ukraine and Russia together called the world's bread basket, are top producers and exporters of several important grains (such as wheat and maize) and vegetable oils. Together they average for 30% of the world's grain production and at least 50% of the world's sunflower seed oil and cotton seed oil. 2 Even more, these countries' contribution to the production of agricultural incentives and fertilizers such as nitrogen and potash is significant. Russia and Ukraine have conflicted for more than 5 years but, on February  in European countries such as Poland. 7,9,10 The global food system is facing uncertainty as the Russia-Ukraine crisis puts one among the world's major breadbaskets in an imminent threat. 11 The scarcity of food in some parts of Ukraine greatly affects the livelihood of Ukrainians. 6,7,10,11 Most of the energy for agricultural production including fuels, electricity, fertilizers, pesticides, and lubricants is reallocated into military use, thus rendering the people unable to produce enough food and thus subjecting people to malnuitrition. 1,12 The health system of Ukraine is functioning at reduced capacity due to conflicts, with millions of Ukrainians lacking essential drugs and treatments such as insulin and antihypertensives. 11,13 The majority of patients with kidney disease fail to get hemodialysis due to the inability of the patients and medical providers to reach the dialysis center during the rocket attacks, bombing, and the presence of active hostilities on the ground. 14 In addition, about 4 million people including children and healthcare workers have fled the country thus leading rapid spread and outbreak of infectious diseases such as Polio and COVID-19 due to disrupted surveillance chains, 9,10 where an estimated 5 million cases were reported in 2022 alone. 10 Surprisingly, only 30% of the Ukraine population received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 10  In the trade risk, there have been steep production and shipments of products causing shortages to occur and inflation of prices worldwide, accounting for the price risk. 18,19 There are also the exchange rates, debts, and economic growth risk, which is foreseen due to discrepancies of currencies that will take place. This will indeed affect investments in the country as well as their ability to import products to sustain their country's livelihood. 20 This implies that with the agricultural and economic activities being down, hence causing prices to rise, the nation of Ukraine has an overall low purchasing power leading to a situation of food insecurity in the near future and malnutrition among the Ukrainians and those depending on it for food supply. 21,22 3 | EFFORTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

| Food crisis in Ukraine
The World Food Program (WFP) started implementing the plan to assist with food insecurity in Ukraine. Considering restrictions to men on leaving the country, this leaves women and children to be the refugee population at risk of hunger. 23 Following the official request from Ukraine, WFP has launched an operation aimed at providing food to the ones that flee from conflicts inside Ukraine. Priority actions intended at averting the food security crises include conducting a rapid food security assessment to better estimate needs; mobilizing food security assistance; providing hot meals in collective centers; distributing emergency food kits; and delivering agricultural inputs including vegetable garden seeds. 24 However, challenges arise in the implementation of the program. To begin with, the fact that Ukraine has been one of the bigger global food suppliers and Ukraine's nearby countries depend on the wheat supply from Ukraine. 25 The conflict has then put these countries at food insecurity that could otherwise help fleeing individuals. Second, there has been a global increase in acute food insecurity, that raised from 135 to 276 million since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has been mentioned to be among the causes of food insecurity among western Ukrainians in 2021. 23 It is our recommendation that, in the implementation of the WFP wonderful operation, paying attention to the global details on food insecurity is crucial.

| COVID-19 pandemic crisis
Ukraine struggled with mitigation measures of COVID-19 even before the invasion by Russia. The challenge have been less vaccination coverage, this is due to less need to get immunized and insecurities toward the vaccine. 15

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The authors confirm that no primary data was collected or associated with this article.

TRANSPARENCY STATEMENT
The lead author Goodluck Nchasi affirms that this manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.