ah, top stories for you on al jazeera, russia's president vladimir putin says he is ready for further talks with the west . after ordering, some russian troops to pull back from the border with ukraine. but he spoke in a meeting with the german chance the olive shots in moscow ish linea. even though by it do we want war or not? of course we don't. and it's for that reason that we have submitted a proposal as to a negotiation process. as a result of which there should be a guarantee for security, for everybody including our country. unfortunately, we have already said this, we have not yet received any kind of stance of answer to the submission at the nato secretary general. as added, his voice sang his cautiously optimistic about russia's announcement, but so far hasn't seen any signs of de escalation on the ground. and the use ambassador to nato says it's too early to say moscow's withdrawing its force. her

welcome. so far we are not as see an end. the de escalation on the ground are not seen any, a science of a reduced or russian meet her person, sir, on the borders of ukraine. ah, but we will continue to monitor and to follow closely. walter, russia is so doing that the headlines, britain's prince. andrew has reached an out of court financial settlement with virginia jeffrey woman had accused him of sexually assaulting a 20 years ago. when she was 17. the princess always denied the allegations the u. s. as asked honduras to arrest and hand over the former president, one orlando, fernandez to face various charges security forces of mauser round of the neighbourhood where hernandez lives. us, prosecutors accusing of corruption, drugs, trafficking to fun, political campaigns, allegations he is always denied. he left office last month in president for 8 years

. mexico's president's criticized a u. s. ban on mexican avocados, the u. s. as it's because of security threats to its inspectors, the mexican government says commercial interests are behind the decision. unvaccinated workers over the age of 50 in italy won't have access to their workplace from tuesday. it is an extension. the government's green pass health certificate, which is required to access most public venues and thousands of nurses in australia's most populous state. new south wales of walked off the job for the 1st time in nearly a decade. the staging a 24 hour strike, demanding better pay and more staffing during the pandemic, stuff from more than a $150.00 hospitals were taking part in that strike. right. we are back with a news are for you in a little over 25 minutes time. next, sam is a down is here with the latest inside story. the

local food prices rising at an alarming right was sending inflation and making it difficult for families around the world while will it mean for vulnerable communities? how long did the trend continue? this is in type store. ah hello and welcome to the show. i'm sammy's a than food and energy prices. all right. historic hives around the globe, and inflation is expected to rise in the coming months. the united nations food agency is warning the higher costs of putting people at risk,

especially those living in developing countries while enrich nations. it's sparking anger and seeing politicians scramble for a solution. in the united states, inflation hit its highest levels in 40 years in the united kingdom. hundreds of people march this week, protesting against rising inflation, tax increases and high energy bills. and in eastern europe, latin america and the pacific people have also been finding the high cost of food to be too much. let's take a look at some of the biggest price hikes in recent month when in south africa. basic food items are more expensive than they were a year ago. 6.3 percent higher. according to statistics, the same trend goes for new zealand where food price is increased by 4.5 percent in december, the highest in 10 years. in india, the retail inflation rates rose to a 6 month high of 5.59 percent in december. largely fueled by the pandemic

in canada. food and energy prices are also going up, rising by 5.7 percent for grocery items compared to last year. and in the u. s. egg and meet prices. some of the most expensive at 7.4 percent higher than they were a year ago. the well, let's bring in our guest to the show. we have joining us from new castle in the u. k. jas, camera assistant professor in supply chain management at new castle university's business school, also in the u. k. but in brighton, lawrence had that the executive director at the global alliance for improve nutrition, and in nairobi. peter cam a lincoln, he is the pat africa director at oxfam international welcome to you, or if i could start with lawrence. so lawrence view and food price index last month showed arise towards record levels. why is it all down to the post pandemic

recovery? thanks sammy, you are, the levels are really high higher since 975 in real terms and i think there are 3 big drivers climate covered and conflict on the climate side of things. we've got some pretty severe droughts and some key food producing areas. her argentina, malaysia, indonesia, ukraine, russia, and this is really driving prices up because supply has been interrupted on the covert front. we know that moving food around in food systems from the farm to the fork is much more complicated under covered restrictions unlocked downs. and when you can't move food around, you can't really equalize supply and demand. and conflict is, you know, conflict is where we seeing the tensions around ukraine and russia, this tensions and if you appear in northern nigeria and northern mozambique,

northern kenya. these kind of tensions make it difficult for people to plan for food actors, farmers, producers, processes to plan. and so the, there's uncertainty in the system and that tends to push prices up as well. so. so jeff, is it a perfect storm of some of the factors that lawrence was talking about, their climate covey, that conflict. i'm trying to see if i can add another see to that chains of supply? yes, absolutely. i think i completely agree with the point that lowers x rays and they definitely are having an impact of the supply chain. so one of the reasons behind this increase the increase in prices is the cost of the input into the supply chains are increasing. so. busy labor labor costs are on the rise, energy cost, fuel costs, so everything is on the right line just by the break it down. very simple tensor, while all those input elements going up. yeah,

so i think it's one of the biggest reason there is the increase in the the, the price of a wholesale, a wholesale gas which has increased by 250 percent. because of one of the reasons that we're not producing an energy as much energy as we used to. that's one reason because of all the drop in the, in the, in the southern america. and also how to ventless unless somebody suspended, ready one. so we're not producing enough energy here, and there are too much rain and in india and china because the climate change and not have it all the pomp of life. so the agriculture have been it so that has led to increasing prices. also, i mean more closer to home and they, you case because of the rise and the, the wholesale natural gas, whole thing gas, which is a cree increase in the 40 live production. the lighter price has increased,

which has led to the increase of prices. also that has led to an increase in the cost of carbon dioxide, which is a byproduct of the production. and we know, you know, we've been dealing with it for the past year that you know, the point a lot of which is the major c o 2 in the, in the u. k. it keeps building down the government at the shop. them deal a lot of money for free, free month, and then get off to those 3 months again. so these are the home additional factors that are really increasing price of the input. and one thing is that also because, you know, as we are trying to recover the economy can cope with all the, all dependent on demand is on the rise. so people are kind of ordering more and more. businesses are ordering more and more, and we are seeing the classic effect and action where as you order more, the prizes increase and you know, beyond able to meet the demands. it's just the combination of factors that lead into all this really does sound like a perfect stormy from to the. a few other questions in my mind, jasper will come back in a moment. i want to bring in peter and say,

what is the bottom line of all of this? especially if people in less developed countries and they're going to be going hungry, facing starvation. now nutrition, what are we looking at? yeah, thanks a lot of my stuff. i think in addition to, i mean, the colleague who i've spoken about in sunday was spoken how rightly you have said that these have been escalated by the triple. she impact coughlin climate and coffee. but i think that the, the thing that we need to under scott in but even before this could be done before, i mean the order to food problem and then in a good part of the one, particularly in africa and the low income countries. and this is largely because over the fail being the food system, which productivity, he's going down increasingly badly because of inputs which are going high. but a lot of that is because all stand many tickets of dish investment on small food for me. those probably produce as small from last month's bill summer. there's

a lot of this investment in productivity. in africa. they have been for many years . they meet amended to invest at least 10 percent of the budget on, on, on, on agriculture and food production that has not been possible. it might wash now because many of the economy is increasingly suffocated. and the increasing public debt crises. so there's a huge problem. the global foot system, the capture by the corporate sector in the food system is i see where the problem is and then we're not investing in productivity. well, the best wine on the peter. so this is i think that as i said, there's a cup job as attendance to pull up job by the be corporate, which is also getting the policy space for our government investing agriculture. there's been a lot of emphasis on like scotland, best investments. and this investment on the model producers, and i think the best way to basically thank the different countries are falling victim to big multinational corporations. absolutely. at least for, for, for,

for africa where i speaking from yes, that's exactly the truth. interesting lines. do agree with that? well, you know, i do, i do think there's an over concentration of power amongst the corporates, in africa and south asia. and this is, this is a, this is an issue. but i think a big part of the problem is just government's not investing us, as peter said in, you know, we, we, for the 1st time ever we have a science based roadmap on how to end hunger by 2030. we know what to do. and we even have it cost it out, it will cost an extra $33000000000.00 a year. and that sounds like a lot, but it's only really a doubling of what we already spend. and it's, it, it basically the equivalent of the increase in that wealth of the world's 10 richest billionaires over the last year long our government railing to do that being has of mismanagement on their part or is that is the situation. there's no need to seem to be saying because there's, there's

a lack of policy spaces. i think the would, the nice terms coined there because of the big multinational really right now. i don't really grew up in the malibu, there is the african nations have a target of 10 percent. they've set themselves that that target. and the last report by the african union on progress towards those targets shows really some countries doing very well. but, but most of the countries actually lagging far behind. i think, you know, the former head of the u. n. food agency always used to say, there is no union for hungry people. there's no way they can have their voice properly heard. they can't put pressure on government's very well unless it comes through the last resort, which is writing in the streets in, in the, in the rural areas. so governments need to feel the heat a little bit more. or i could say peter was angling to get in with a come back. go ahead peter. yes, i do agree that the, obviously, i'm not here. i don't want to you know,

exonerate african government. these are the doesn't separate states different and they do have some scope. they haven't maximize the scope they have. i think the reference to that money would be correlation. yes, it can be done, but i think i realize that the reality of this countries is much more than we would just imagine. because for example, these are countries where for some of them probably 60 percent of the national budget is not going to be paying date. the physical space is much more like it's the watch off the public. so the a certain thing that they can do, but there's a lot that is outside the control of government. but even then they haven't come to get them. this is why we are really asking them to do what they can to be able to at least deliver what they are committed to, including that multiple commitment. but i think that is important. realize that some of the large corporates have a time over that is, you know, significantly higher than that done. although some of the government, so they do have, i'm do inferential policy decision making, including of a national parliaments. national is lifting processes. they're much more powerful

than we've been imagined. so there has to be some data key. they have to be an understanding that if we don't take collective and walked together through month lateral systems where the through the you instruct the if it will be demand. if we don't do things, for example, so alicia financial flows where this countries are losing money because of weaknesses in global facts of the unit of the systems. we don't do all the things to expand, the physical space is going to be difficult for these governments to deliver and invest in food production interest. i would agree with that. i would agree with that tommy and peter. but i think the way we never talk about the quiet revolutionaries in the food system in africa, which are the small, medium enterprises. we need to find ways to get more private credit and equity from investors to those quiet revolutionaries. most people who are on low incomes get their food through small, medium enterprises and small to farmers. we need to support them much more. we did it. okay. job during covered what we need to keep supporting them with credit

equity and technical assistance. i want to go back to jackson, pick you up an appoint, you mentioned you were saying that the world is simply not producing enough energy . is there an element of perhaps mismanagement collectively for the world in not saying that obviously the day was going to come when things would pick up after the pandemic? did we fail to put production in the right place and in test, in anticipation of that i think they're both on some level. it was that also i think there has been this continuing just one of the people that this investment that they've been talking about. we have been thinking about, you know, exploring other sources of energy and not relying on some of the traditional fuel and, and gas. what has happened although there's a lot of research going on on. this is commercially viable. it's not going to see to see the funding. so for example, there's a lot of talk about c, c u. s. common capture utilization of storage technology. but it's the cost of

setting that up and increasing the capacity of storing carbon and, and using it. it's just not completely bible yet, so i think that has been a problem whole for the country, even though we do, we do want to achieve net 0 and everything also in general is also a classic over i wouldn't say over reaction. i think that's the wrong thing to say, but what's going on with russia and ukraine situation? russia is the 3rd biggest oil producer in the world. and, and the, when you start thinking about, hey, what's going on there? they're going to be an odd shortage. there would be an increase of demand. so that has been more of a recent thing, but the demand have been increasing. and that has led to an increase in price throughout the supply chain, which eventually get increased the price and you know, push it back to the consumer. and i think finally having to be, we know about the lot of private shot a is a truck driver shortage that has been going on. and so that has that sort of

extended on the, on the shipping side. so a lot of energy fuel is transported exported right, and b d b chips for that. who have the professional equipment. now what happens is people are refusing to get on ship because what have been ever given last year and also what was happening. but people over there will suck and shift way pop their contract due date that they don't want to cash go with also they want, they don't want to get back treatment. they were literally surviving on bundle bread a day. so they don't want to get into that situation again and they want to get more clarity. so the shipping fuel has also been impacted for some about helping. i mean, we have and we talk about supply chain risk nation, be say no known and unknown unknown. i know, so this is like, so sorry, non unknown and i don't know. so this didn't spend element of this unknown unknown that has been happening, but they were quite a bit of known known, unknown, which could have been managed. gosh, the founding really like

a perfect storm of factors then with the world or some countries, at least not investing already enough in food production. and then, you know, along comes cove, it in conflicts and climate change just to make everything more complicated. let's take it back to peter not simon asked the question now. lawrence mentioned the good point, support of small and medium sized enterprises, realistically speaking, who can give that support and how important a role can they play in food security in this era of mega corporations and globalization? yeah, thanks. i think that the logic is not investing in small, medium enterprises, family funding and all that. but i think it is important that your government should do that. but i think that a lot of the government is, as i said, i increasingly finding it difficult to do that because of the an expanding public. the problem. and the other thing is also, of course, the climate in fact are wanting to make it much harder for them to produce, to,

to know the weather patterns like changing and shifting in ways of the, the butler cannot. i mean, the farmers cannot cope. and there is, of course, a fusion, of course, of the be corporate together with the state that is making it difficult, especially the vulnerable small from us. luckily, you know, produce enough food for them some time wondering grady given incentive against these poor small farmers then because if you're going to invest in somebody, i'm going to look to the most vulnerable, small farmers who might not be able to survive kobe than conflict and climate change and drought. so when you looked at, you know, put your but your money on huge corporations. i think that the truth is that what, no matter what we put it at the moment, the market fixed amount has failed. and the bulk of what we know that there's multiple of these are still the most important. the problem is that they're not having enough investment in terms of technology in terms of input, in terms of access to credit. the affordable credit that is not happening in the

majority of the countries, at least in africa, but as i can see, and i think that that's where the future, that's where the hawkins and that's where we're saying that the and all the cultural policies and investments should be directed at the small food producers that granted it must be accompanied by investments and cannot get in training in contra extension services. i know there are also in terms of the moment when the market system need to be regulated in a way that that's not the space for the small producers. as i've said there been a lot of investment on lifecycle land producers of the export of this month. and that's the reason why we are having a problem, no matter what we say, probably 70 percent of the food in africa is still a matter of small from. that's where we need to investments. as far as i can see, after all, i think that the ones that you back the most at the moment and then the, the, the, the, the issue, all sol, as i say it again, these countries i'm not poor been met by a global policies. are they said again,

for example, africa losing $706070000000.00 every year to financial loss. so you have that can be they can be multi lateral mechanisms able to come up and redirect that's to, to, to, to, to food production. yes, it is possible. i think that they all, it's also important to understand that these, these impacts of food hunger issues are not gender blind. the impact like the women and children. and i think that we need to have policies that are clearly directed and focus on, on those the majority of the country and where you see the biggest crisis has been, you know, countries that governance problems, that issues of conflict by displacement. that simply means that people don't have the time, they don't have the space, they don't have the piece where i luckily produce food. they have to rely on on charity, which i think is not where nobody wants wants to be. i don't gonna hold them down relying on food coming from abroad because you don't have the time to produce it

yourself. lawrence in light, especially of the pandemic, is the world moving even more towards a globally supplied food supply rather than you know, local production. so cove, its leading up think los as well. i don't think it's inevitable. i think the, the choices are there for policy makers. you know, we need to diversify. i think we've probably over asked over invested in global value change and global supply chains. and i think we're now seeing how fragile the food system is. mean cove at 19 was devastating for, for humanity and, and a massive stress test for the food system. and i'd say the food system fail desperately in pretty much every country. and that's because it was reliant on just in time global value chains. so i'm not saying no trade, of course, not. international value chains are critical, but we need a greater diversity of the length, both specialty and temporarily value chains. and i think we are seeing

a return to local production, regional production, more inter trade more and more trade within africa with a new free trade zone with in africa, that's going to be vital. so i think, i think, you know, it's really important and it's not just about small whole, the farmers, it's about the small processes, the small retailers, the small marketers. these are companies that employ 51015 or up to 100 people. and they are going to be the future of african food systems, but we need to invest them. otherwise the big corporate will take over and we'll just have all the problems we have in the u. k. have the same problems in sub turn, africa, and africa. interesting, i want to bring jessie on the 1st point of what lawrence was talking about, that always seeing supply chains change jass as a result of that failure. always seeing a move at least to some degree away from you know,

reliance on the global supply chain. yes, yes, so i'm just responding to a lot insight about that and partially about pizza said about supporting local capabilities. so again, i mean at the outset, yes, dad is a change being change being upset of kind of moving from global supply chains to, to more regional local supply chains. but there is a problem with that that, you know, if you, if you trade for a long time, but it's not a bad thing. also. production i've seen like in graduate as we have seen the paddling, what happens is also that you lose capability over time. so you lose the knowledge of a time or how about a factor, how to produce certain things. now what happens is that if you want to kind of reinvigorate those local capabilities, what needs to happen is that rather relying on global about gender,

we have to identify retail clusters and invest into them and develop them to, to become, to develop that. those kind of mess realty, and that possibly goes into peter was saying about supporting supporting local bombers and you know, a small, small, medium enterprises. and i was, i think that yes, government does have a role to play in that. i think industrial, big corporations also have to play that. so what they can do, and we have seen some, some successes recently in the u. k. but you know that there's a lot that needs to be done. what they need to do is, instead of relying on traditional supply suppliers, traditional global, bigger suppliers, they need to invest in local supply chain to try and work with local supplies and integrate them into their, their own supply chain. however, that needs, but you need a different spinal contracting, you need different payment, you need to understand what that each one are and that kind of goes to social value . in addition to economic value, in some kind of world, we're in right now,

really values put supreme. all right, i'm sorry, we're gonna have to end that because we are out of time. terribly sorry guys. i know we can go on talking about this. i'm sure we will be bank to talk about it later, but for now go to end it. let's thank our guests. just cal, right? lawrence had dad and peter kimling and, and thank you to for watching. you can see the show again, any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com for further discussion head over to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash a j inside story. can also join the conversation on twitter. our handle there is act a j inside story from me, sammy's a than and the entire team here, for our is good bye. ah, ah.

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a repository of knowledge but an access point to the world beyond ah ah, this is al jazeera ah, welcome to the news. our fronted 1800 odds g empty. i'm come all santa maria. these are the top stories we do not want war in europe. that message coming from russia's leader as he hosts the german chancellor in moscow for talks on the ukraine crisis . russia though he is pulling some of its troops back from the border with ukraine after saying that completed their drills. also in the news, the former president of hon.