MINSK, 18 November (BelTA) - The world is one step away from a global food catastrophe, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at a ceremony o honor best agricultural workers in Minsk on 18 November, BelTA has learned.
"Every wheat spikelet is worth its weight in gold in our time. Look at the situation in the world. Last year, 828 million people (about a tenth of the world's population) were affected by hunger. The number of people who cannot afford a healthy diet has exceeded 3 billion. Growth of consumer prices for food has played a role as well. The world is one step away from a global food catastrophe. For a variety of reasons. Not only climatic and geographic. There are countries that at one time abandoned their own agricultural production becoming markets for imported products. In the eyes of Western curators, they are more democratic than you and me," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
On the other hand, Belarus was ahead of the CIS countries in the Global Food Security ranking last year and is able to feed itself, the president stressed. “Not just itself," he added.
"When the Soviet Union collapsed (some remember this), there was a very bad problem with the provision of bread to Minsk. The city had flour enough, as you remember, only for three days. Today, a couple of decades on, more than 100 countries buy Belarusian products. This year export revenue will hit a record high of more than Br20 billion, "the head of state said.
