al jazeera. a white father and son convicted of killing a black jogger have been sentenced to life in prison without parole. the jury found travis and gregory mcmichael guilty of murdering ahmaud arbery. their neighbor received a life sentence with possibility of parole with 30 years. >> my prayer was to get adjusted for ahmaud. he fought for us in the courts, gave us a fair judge. judge walmsley heard the testimony from each witness.

he gave us a very good verdict and a very good sentence. but i knew that we would come out with a victory. i never doubted it. >> kazakhstan's president told his forces they can shoot to kill without warning as he tries to end of violent protests against his government. dozens of protesters and security personnel have been killed and more than 3000 people have been detained. >> terrorists continue to damage public and private property and use weapons against citizens. i gave in order to law enforcement agencies and the army to open fire without warning. there have been calls for the parties to move the negotiations to a peaceful was aleutian, but nonsense. what kind of negotiations can there be with orders? we have to deal with armed and

trained and its, both local and foreign. that is why they have to be destroyed. and it will be done soon. sami: the u.s. -- >> the u.s. supreme court is deciding if the white house can force a large vaccine mandate for large employers. the rules apply to companies with more than 100 employees, requiring workers to get fully vaccinated against covid or get tested weekly. the justices' decision could impact as many as 80 million workers. india is introducing mandatory home quarantine for all international passenger arrivals . the new measures apply even if travelers return a negative covid-19 test at the airport. daily infections on friday passed 117,000. the headlines are coming up next on "inside story." ♪

>> food prices rose sharply in 2021. the un's as they were the highest in a decade and warns there are no guarantees they will fall this year. what is behind spike? what will it take to bring prices down? this is "inside story." ♪ hello, welcome to the program. i am campanella. for many, 2021 offered hope for a return to normality, but after months of lockdown sent controlled borders, economists again to warn of a new, looming

crisis -- the rising cost of food. the when food agencies as prices jumped 28% during the year, their highest level since 2011. in december, they eased slightly, but before that they had been climbing for four months in a row. the surge is blamed on factors including supply chain bottlenecks, increased costs for raw material and energy. either food rises can lead to higher inflation which affects consumers around the world. the u.n. food and agriculture organization tracks prices. it found all categories showed sharp increases in 2021. crucial food staples like wheat surged by more than one third. sugar cost more than it has in five years. the u.n. warns the situation shows no sign of improving this year and could force dramatic changes in the way people eat. as always, poor nations are disproportionately affected, especially those alliant on imports.

the u.n. says the region most at risk of famine and food insecurity is sub-saharan africa, with the situation getting out of control and the democratic republic of congo, nigeria and sudan. in afghanistan, more than half the population is expected to face hunger this winter. food prices have soared. aid is needed to save the harvest and in latin america, the pandemic pushed venezuela and peru further into food and security with significant increases in poverty and hunger. ♪ let's bring in our guests. joining us from cape town is a senior lecture in the department of environment of science at the university of cape town. in rome, a senior economist at the united nations food and agricultural organization. and our guest from new delhi is a professor of economics at a

university in delhi. thank you for joining us here on "inside story." i would like to begin with you. explain to our viewers what is it that has driven food prices so high? >> well, as you very nicely summarized it, when we talk about food prices, it is a measure of prices going up in international markets composed of many commodities, each of them for different reasons. it is hard to say this is the reason. meet went up for one reason and cereals went up for another --m went up for what -- meat went up for one reason and cereals went up for another. it continued until now. yes, there was a little decline as you mentioned in february, another little decline in june and july. except for those months, you had

every month going up. if i were to generalize, i would have said that the demand surprises, strong demand at the world level despite health issues, despite covid and all the expectations that perhaps countries will be importing less and so forth, it didn't really materialize. so, demand continued strong and on the supply side, we had a few problems here and there, especially for crops such as wheat. production shortfalls and major exporting companies were blame but also, there were logistical issues. a combination of factors came together on the supply side and made the supply and demand situation tight for almost of the best almost all of the categories of commodities that we compile. the issue is that it has been continuous, it has going up -- has been going up, in december there was a decline, but there

is pressure on demand and the situation does remain precarious and worrying. >> let's cross to jane and cape town -- jane and cape town. africa, sub-saharan africa, one of the places most at risk for insecurity. what impact are these high prices having their? -- having there? >> about a fifth of africa's population already go hungry, and reporters are unable to afford an adequate diet. when you compound the impact of food price increases, we see the deleterious effect. a lot of the impacts are on those in conflict affected countries like south sudan, and we see critical food insecurity. in south sudan, about 70% of the population will need food relief.

however, we may be getting too caught up in conflict-affected countries and fail to recognize the magnitude across the country -- across the continent. many households are on the cusp of being food insecure. these food price increases will push them into that next crisis. >> before we move on, i want to ask for our viewers because we often use jargon and forget that not everybody uses this jargon. what do we mean by food insecure? >> food insecure is different to hunger. food insecure is the uncertainty about where your food is going to come from, being unable to access an adequate diet. often, it extends beyond base hunger and into that challenge of getting a nutritious diet, knowing where your food is going to come from and to come from and having a reliable supply. we think about food insecurity being based on, is there food available? are you able to access it?

are you able to utilize the food that you get? and is that system stable? recently, there were added on another two dimensions, what kind of power do you have in that system and how sustainable is the food system that is providing for you? >> let's go to new delhi. when you impact on these higher food prices having in india? and what was the scituate -- the situation like before 2021? >> first of all, the impact of inflation, india is in a different space because we don't see high food inflation here yet as far as staples are concerned, which is also because the main staples are rice and meat, and india is self-sufficient in terms of production. we don't depend on imports and the production of these crops that might have been affected in covid either. but for other foods, india has

seen high inflation over the last many months, and these are crucial components of diets in india, edible oils being the main source of fat in indian diets. and we see a change in people's diets when they are not able to consume enough of these foods. this needs to be seen in the context of overall food insecurity in india. four long, -- -- for long, although india has seen high levels of economic growth, in food, we have not made much progress and part of the population cannot afford a balanced diet. and because of the lockdowns and economic slow down, we have a lot of evidence showing that the situation is worse, and many

more people have fallen below the poverty line and are not, are not what you would describe such as food insecure. >> you mentioned demand and supply as you were generalizing the big issues at play. i was interested to real about the role of energy prices and fertilizer. because as governments spend money and energy prices go up, what impact is that going to have his we go into 2022? >> this is the concern that we thank the international community will have to keep in mind. because usually in agriculture, you do get high prices for one reason or another. but in many countries, it is quite a strong sector, and high

prices may be bad for consumers, but not for producers and farmers try to make the best out of it. but this assumes that the cost of production is not going to go up as much. in this case, there isn't much in terms of investing and increasing production. and this is always a danger. it happens very rarely, at this time around, we are confronting a situation where fertilizer prices have skyrocketed. for many parts of the world, farmers will say wait a second, i am just not going to put that fertilizer on the ground because it is going to cost me so much and my profit margin will shrink. so, it is not a done deal that you are going to get the sort of response we would normally get in terms of increasing production. and this comes at a time when we know climactic conditions,

extreme weather conditions over a long time can really destroy the prospects, bicycling -- basically, all the way up to the day of the harvest. it is a worrying situation, prices are high and having uncertainty about production. now, fertilizer and part of it is energy prices, actually most of it is because of energy prices and gas prices. this is one aspect where energy comes into play, let's say, with prospects we are considering now. any industry that depends on energy, it is huge, not to mention transport. and we have known for more than a decade that alternative energy has definitely encouraged bigger production of ethanol and biodiesel and so forth from corn

and other agricultural crops, the production of biofuels. that usually happens and then commands stronger the higher energy prices go, which means you also have that distraction on the demand side. we seem to be getting more of it now. i don't want to draw a very dark picture about this whole thing, there is still time, we don't know exactly how the production situation is going to unfold. it is too early at this time of the year. but i think we need to be more careful than we usually are at this time of year because we are starting it after 14 months of increasing prices, and if inflation persists in many countries, on top of inflationary pressures coming from basically all sides because of covid and other reasons. >> i want to pick up on something you said and cross over to jane, mentioning climate

change. what impact has the weather and climate change had in terms of skyrocketing food prices? >> it has had impacts across the board. in south africa, we have had regional droughts, recently had a massive increase in potato prices because of a drought in a region of the country. and yet we are also expanding -- experiencing the global effects. the very high crude oil prices we have experienced. we need to think about how a globalized food system is resilient, and not vulnerable to climate shocks. one question we need to think about is how we make the situation more resilient to ongoing shocks that are going to become increasingly present in our food system. sami: i want -- >> i want to ask you about china.

one analyst posited a reason for rising prices, china hoarding supplies. u.s. department of agriculture says john is expecting to have 69% of the entire world's maze reserves -- maize reserves, 51% of its right. is china to blame -- of its rice. is janet to blame -- is china to blame? >> we don't know what the true picture in china is. but we do know there is the question of who controls the food systems. and as we are getting into more globalized food systems, they are vulnerable to all these types of shocks, a certain country making certain disions , find a change in one part of the world affecting the whole world, oil prices going up, and so on. i think all of this and the experience of food insecurity

over the years of covid, wet it points us to is to ask questions on how move toward more decentralized food systems. in india, it is in crops which we have self-sufficiency in about 30 years back, oils for example. similarly in the case of rising wheat, because we have enough, it clearly doesn't affect india, what is happening in other countries. i would say, rather than pointing fingers, it is time to look at a decentralized food system. even within a country like india, i would still say it is centralized at the national level. something communities have control over where farmers get better prices and at the same time, the crops that are being grown is suited to the local environment. >> there is another example put forward, which is qatar during

the blockade. qatar moved to be much more self-sufficient in terms of its food reduction. i would like to come back to you, what initiatives are there right now to try and ease, i know you don't want to be to doomsday, maybe not an impending crisis, but to ease the situation we have now? how do we make the food supply system more resilient? >> in a way, we have been trusting the markets. and i must say markets, international markets, have more or less delivered on what we expected, supply adjusting to demand and so forth. we had issues back into thousand eight, 2009 -- in 2008, 2000 p -- 2009, rice was a big

issue. the reason we don't see a crisis of the scale that we saw last time is that rice is one of the few commodities for which prices fell in 2020, on average about 4%. referring to inflation in india, this is because of a, quite an ample rice situation. we learned quite a bit from the last episode that if you just go ad hoc with restriction measures and you are an exporter, this is bound to not only create problems at the world level, it also domestically eventually, for your own farmers, they are not going to benefit from high prices. this very market has more or less worked quite well and we hope it could be sustained and

this would be in itself a solution. at the international level, what has been happening since last crisis was the establishment of the agricultural market information system, which is also in fao. one objective is that all the objective -- all the importers and exporters get together once a month to discuss what is happening, statistics and also policy. this has helped us quite a bit at least for coordination of policies. this could be considered one of the things that could be singled out from the international side in helping to create a more stable, predictable market. if i may conclude on this, because china was mentioned and china is part of this group i mentioned. none of the statistics about china, you have to be very

careful, the usda number about reserves in china was interpreted in some quarters, china has over 50% of the world reserve, but that is not what usda met and that is not the situation. these stocks in china which indeed represent more than 50% of global stocks have been accumulated over a very, very long time. and those numbers are not official numbers because china does not publish them. usda and other information sources, we don't have good numbers about the stocks not just for china, but for almost every other country. that is a reserve carried over from one year to than other. it doesn't mean it can just be fed to people tomorrow if they need it. china's importance is its size and at the beginning of the year, prices went up a lot because of big china demand for corn, soybeans and a demand for meat at the beginning of the

year because of the disease. >> i hear what you are saying. this is why we invite people like you on, to get to the bottom of statistics like that, which on face value can be quite shocking. jane, we talked it -- talked about the macro level, government policy and the local level, but on a human level, when food becomes very expensive and the cost of living is already very high, what sort of societal impact you think we might see? we have seen protests across the world last year in 2021 over the rising costs of living. i know that you can't simplify something to say food is expensive, therefore people are protesting. but do you think we might see an impact societally? >> absolutely. we have been doing research throughout this time and seeing the impact on individuals and households and how people are

changing their diets, food purchasing patterns, reducing the quality of their diets, but also the impact on people's psyche, the impact on social networks when they become too strained. long-term, we are seeing social protests that are sometimes not especially about what we believe our food-based protests. there is an urgency to address this. but part of the solution to these challenges rests in understanding how people navigate these crises, and see how people seek out points of resilience, seek out diversity in systems, seek out the more social less market-based systems and see how to build resilience. and those systems may well invite us with a buffer from the excesses of the food price crisis we are saying. >> i know that you are a professor of economics, you are also a food security specialist.

in terms of politics though, do you think that all eyes will now be on policymakers to get the right balance to find a way to lift economies post-pandemic, but also i sure that the cost of food -- but also ensure that the cost of food doesn't go up too much? >> absolutely peered when we look at last time when there was global food price inflation after 2008, we did seafood riots -- we did see food riots in many places of the world. other unrest was not about food, but many scholars linked it to inflation that was so high, which led to people in protests. now, it is an even more serious concern because given covid, it is also a. 's -- also a period when people

have been losing jobs. people are not able to feed themselves enough. this is something all governments will be questioned about and should be really concerned. it is unfortunate that many are still not seeing the crisis, but it is something that is staring at us. >> we have about 45 seconds left, a big question for a quick answer. how do you think policymakers will respond? is this an opportunity to rethink how we do better? how we do better in terms of rising prices, supply chains? >> i do think covid is an opportunity for us to completely rethink our food systems rather than having piecemeal solutions. in india, above 80% of the population have been given

subsidized rice and meat, but does not enough. -- but that is not enough. we need a more in-depth look into the food system, looking at agriculture, we need a more decentralized food system and the idea that crops which are grown using climate-friendly methods. all of this can be done. there is a lot of research on how this can be achieved. >> we have to leave it there for time. thank you for joining us, all of our guests. we appreciate. thank you for watching. you can see the program anytime by visiting our website, and go to facebook.com/ajinsidestory. our handle on twitter is @a jinsidestory.

goodbye for now. ♪ ■ú

summer in the mediterranean,d when the sea is calm, it becomes europe's deadliest crossing. albert roma: sit down. sit down, everyone. eric: tens of thousands fleeing africa for a better life. male: you find god. you find solution, or you die. eric: italy wants to stop the boats, even if it costs lives. savvas kourepinis: i am in the sea trying to keep the people alive, and you tell me to call malta. eric: we join a rescue group saving boats in defiance of italy. so they see you as the enemy? gerard canals: absolutely, yes. eric: and we follow migrants on their perilous path to europe. ♪♪♪