host: welcome to “global 3000.” an insecure future -- the survival of penguins in the antarctic is under threat. dangerous dependency -- how russia's war in ukraine is worsening hunger around the world. and far from home -- ukrainians fleeing the war are searching for a new life in peace. russia's invasn has

devastated much ofkraine. apartment blocks, schools and hospitals continue to be mercilessly targeted, with the number of civilian casualties rising. hastily-dug trenches are serving as provisional graves for many of the dead. ukrainians have shown fierce resistance against the russian army with huge losses on both sides. while the men fight, large numbers of wen, chilen and older people have fled the country. their route is often dangerous with a high risk of being shot themselves. several million ukrainians have already left. thousands of refugees arrive from ukraine every day in berlin alone, including many non-nationals who have likewise had to flee. all have suffered sadness and trauma. >> we're in shock, like all ukrainians who've fled the war.

we're afraid. we heard the sounds of the sirens and bombs. >> for two days i couldn't believe i was in berlin. i couldn't understand what was happening. i was in a state of shock. >> on the day the war broke out, everyone ran down into their cellars. >> when i hear helicopters, i think the war's come here. it stays with you, you know? an aircraft isn't what it was when you were a child, where you'd look up and think, “wow, neat!” now when you hear an aircraft, you think, “we're at war.” an aircraft is bad.

i wouldn't wish this shock, this terror, on anyone. you know, i have no enemies, basically i get along with everyone. but i wouldn't wish for the worst person in the world to have to go through this. it's truly horrible. >> everyone in ukraine knows they could die at any moment. there's not a moment's rest or peace. i slept with all my clothes on. you hear the sirens, the planes approaching. >> it's so scary. when someone says something to you, you can't understand anything. it's like you're not there. you feel stupid, because it's such a shock and you can't understand what's happening.

>> whatever happens, i think the russians will get their comeuppance for the deaths of the innocent children and people in ukraine. >> history won't forget this. people will remember how russia behaved, and what they've done. >> for a moment there was a lull, and we were able to escape. the train station was a nightmare. there were so many people, and the men weren't allowed to leave. men aged 18 to 60 broke down and cried like little children. we've never seen that. we're raised to believe that men don't cry. but with the fear of sending their families away, to god knows where, who knows where.

>> to be quite honest, i don't even think about the future. i think about my grandmother who's stayed in ukraine, and i think about what's going to happen next in our country. i want the war to stop, right now. >> i'm so sad that my grandma had to stay in the ukraine, and our cat did too. >> now we're trying, god willing, to forget our lives over there a bit. we hope we can be open enough to accept this new life. host: the war in ukraine is affecting

parts of the world already dogged by difficulty. in east africa, long-running droughts and plagues of locusts have devastated harvests. this has left many nations reliant on food imports from abroad. wheat, for example, often comes from russia and ukraine. this year, prices are set to hike, and supplies to dwindle, a painful side effect of our dependency on global trade. reporter: humanity has taken huge steps a painful side effect of our forward since we domesticated wheat more than 10,000 years ago. now, we use satellites to forecast the weather and no longer rely on astrology. we use ai to monitor soil, control pests and grow healthier crops. we produce enough food to feed two worlds. [record scratch]

but why does 10% of the population still face hunger today? the un's food and agriculture organization says the biggest threats to food security are climate change and regional conflicts. in 2021, a historic drought in the u.s. decreased grain harvest by 25%, causing prices to skyrocket. heatwaves, wildfires, flash floods, and cyclones put food production at risk all around the world. climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of these natural disasters, which have social and political consequences. dr. frick: the middle east and north african countries are highly dependent on wheat imports. in 2010, when peat fires were all around moscow, the then russian president medvedev decreed a stop of grain export. and certainly, the stopping of grain exports was not the

reason for the arab spring, but it certainly was one of the triggers. bread prices spiked, and the bread price is always a political price. reporter: 26 countries import more than 50% of their wheat from ukraine and russia. for some, it's up to 90%. the war is making the bread prices soar in many countries. but in a world full of uncertainties, why don't countries produce all the food they need domestically? david laborde from the international food policy research institute says that resources are not distributed evenly around the planet. david: and therefore, you have three solutions -- either you move people, or you move borders, or with that is that you trade and the afood. reporter:al but this interdependency might have unforeseen costs. for example, egypt -- once the breadbasket of the vast roman empire -- now heavily depends on wheat imports from ukraine and russia. 85% of egypt's wheatmports

came from the two countries in 2020. this was not always the case. in 2010, egypt only sourced half of its wheat from russia and ukraine, and 20 years ago, none. egypt relies on wheat imports while producing other crops like rice. the more you buy, the lower the price per unit. while initially attractive, countries may become overdependent on only a few trade partners. but the climate crisis and increasing conflicts prove once more that governments must adapt a “just in case” mentality instead of “just in time." diversifying food sources would be key. but soaring bread prices in the middle east and africa are just one consequence of the war in ukraine. david: the main problem we face is how we are going to deal with the fertilizer crises? that impacts the global food supply, and russia and its ally belarus are key exporters. fertilizer mattersor everye.

reporter: russia and belarus account for almost one-fifth of fertilizer exports globally. the sanctions on these two countries will raise the price of available fertilizers. and this will in turn raise farmers' costs. when no fertilizer is used, wheat harvests decrease by 30% to 40%. and thiss similar for every crop. does that mean there won't be enough food anymore? dr. frick: let me say that very clearly -- there is enough food in the world for everybody. that we have people who are food insecure is a question of them being poor, of social exclusion, . reporter: dr. martin frick directs the world food program's global office in berlin, which organizes food and cash aid for people experiencing humanitarian crises. dr. frick: globally, we afford ourselves to still waste more than a third of the entire food production. so, food insecurity is a matter

of social exclusion, of injustice. reporter: experts say there are solutions to each onof our proems. ishane: you look at fertigation, for example, whereby you use the fertilizer in the water, and you dissolve it in the water. you could use much less fertilizer if you use it this way. reporter: ismahane haloufi of the un food and agriculture ganizati says that more than just science is needed to end world hunger. ismahane: there is no silver bullet. technology alone would not work. technology needs the rig policy. it needs the right regulation. reporter: ending world hunger seems to be more difficult than sending a mission to mars, as the problem has to less to do with technology and more to do with fair distribution. ♪ host: what happens if fertilizers become scarce or overly expensive? one simple solution is to opt for traditional methods for thousands of years, farmers have been enriching their soils with animal or even human dung.

in many countries human feces end up in purification plants because they can contain toxins and pathogens. for r global ideas series, we travelled to a small community in mexico which swears by the benefits of so-called “humanure.” reporter: tomás villanueva is so pleased with the day's harvest that he breaks into song as he delivers a sample for the kitchen. [singing] his wife liliana aranda will use it to prepare lunch. after working outdoors, everyone's hungry. >> we thank the water for watering the plants, the compost for feeding them. reporter: that compost was made from human excrement, all perfectly normal for farmer tomás villanueva and his family. even at the dinner table it's no taboo, given their salad and vegetables were grown with nutrients from human feces.

on the edge of the small mexican town of tepetixtla, in the state of mexico, the ollin tlalli farm grows fruit and vegetables. everything here is fertilized exclusively with homemade human dung. tomás: we're completing the cycle. what comes from the earth is digested and excreted. the process of composting allows us to give back to the soil what we took from it. so we complete the cycle and life continues. reporter: they eat their own vegetables, but they also sell them at markets. all plants need nutrients to grow, especially nitrogen and phosphorus. ollin tlalli is a fully organic farm and artificial fertilizers are banned. tomás villanueva says they're

expensive and bad for the soil. so he and his team invest a lot of time and effort collecting excrement from dry toilets, mixing it with natural ingredients like stone powder or straw to transform it into a rich compost over a number of months. the activity of bacteria leads to high temperatures during composting. that heat kills any pathogens. tomás: this compost here is now ready. and it smells pleasant, like fertile soil. reporter: they use it to grow various types of cabbage, beetroot, broccoli, fruit and a whole lot more. we've come to the small town of ocotepec in the state of morelos. here, architect césar añorve has also looked at ways of recycling feces. he decided to try out something completely new. césar: this is an ecological neighborhood that i set up more

than twenty years ago. i wanted to show that homes can use dry toilets and not pollute any water. reporter: in other words, toilets that divert the urine away from the feces and that are not flushed with water. these toilets are not connected to the sewage system either. dalia: urine lands in the front here, poop at the back. just add a bit of soil and... that's it. reporter: a lot of raw sewage in mexico flows directly into lakes, rivers and the sea, something césar añorve finds outrageous. he believes dry toilets are the solution and gives workshops teaching people how to build and use them. but getting people to actually talk about poop is the biggest challenge. césar: it's like they're afraid of it. reporter: but his sanitation system forces people to think about

the subject rather than just flushing it away. ♪ césar: as an architect i discovered that in my profession water is seen as a means of transporting away feces and urine. i found that terrible. so my work aims to change this perception of water. what i'm doing is reviving the knowledge and understanding of water that our ancestors had. they didn't see excrement as something dirty, but as something that needs to be returned to the earth. ♪ reporter: those ancestors used human feces and other organic waste to develop fertile islands known as chinampas, used for growing crops in wetland areas. they've been used in mexico

since ancient times. on one chinampa on the edge of mexico city, lucio usobiaga is seeking to keep that heritage alive. lucio: the chinampas are one rare example of how we humans have helped to promote life and biodiversity. so they're a very powerful example of how we can live in harmony with nature. reporter: he runs a regenerative farming project called arca tierra. the idea is to grow organic produce working as closely as possible with nature. the produce is then sold to restaurants in mexico city. dry toilets are a must here. there's neither electricity nor running water and the chinampas are protected areas, so waste needs to be dealt with. lucio usobiaga sees the excrement that has been collected here as a resource. lucio: we need to give back to the earth what we've received in the shape of food. otherwise you get an imbalance, leading to pests and depleted

soil. to feed the plants properly you need to return all that's left over back to the soil. reporter: right now, they're only fertilizing fruit trees with human dung. they want to first make sure they can reliably filter out any pathogens, residual hormones and medication in the compost before they start using it for vegetables too. back to the ollin tlalli organic farm. tomás villanueva's customers know how his vegetables are grown, and they wholeheartedly approve. tomás: poop has a bad image in our society, but we know that this composting process makes it perfectly hygienic. and we always like to say that with poop you never lose a harvest. reporter:

a cycle of giving and taking, eating and excreting. something that triggers revulsion elsewhere is seen here as the most natural thing in the world. ♪ host: just a few days ago, several research stations in the antarctic reported record high temperatures. the southernmost continent is shielded from warmer regions by the antarctic circumpolar current, a strong cold stream, which flows around antarctica so keeping temperatures down. but climate change is impacting here too and ice sheets are becoming more fragile. reporter: setting off from the neumayer research station in antarctica, snowmobiles carry the german scientists over a bed of ice 200 meters thick. it's an ice shelf that ends a few kilometers further on, where the ice floes of the antarctic ocean begin.

♪ as far as the eye can see, there's nothing but icebergs, and emperor penguins, living in frigid conditions at the southern tip of the world. marie-charlott rümmler has been observing this colony for several months. the emperor penguins are currently rearing their chicks in the icy conditions. marie-charlott: they're at a stage now where the chicks are relatively big. they get left on their own for quite a while so that their parents can go looking for food. and they're starting to form what's known as a creche, where groups of chicks huddle together for more protection. reporter: this year, the scientists have brought drones with them. they want to be able to map out the penguin colonies and also test how the penguins respond to the noise of the drones.

marie-charlott: the german environment agency has commissioned us to provide a baseline for drawing up guidelines for when drones can be used and how close to the penguins, because more and more drones are being used here. reporter: the drones will also allow the scientists to determine the size of the colony for the first time. their numbers are currently estimated at over 20,000. the first drone flights run without problems. marie-charlott: there was less of a reaction than we were expecting. we thought they'd panic. but there was only a relatively small response, as far as we could observe. reporter: the emperor penguins come here every year after their hunting season. having stocked up their energy reserves, they breed their

chicks on the frozen surface of the sea. the scientists say if the climate here changes, it could threaten the emperor penguins' future. marie-charlott: for this penguin colony, it would be a major threat if the structure of the sea ice on which they breed changed. if temperatures increase and the sea ice recedes, or breaks up earlier, then they'd have a shortened breeding season or no place at all to breed. and that could mean that the colony might no longer come together and reproduce here. reporter: suchch drastic changes are already a reality in other areas. climate change and rising temperatures mean some penguin colonies have already disappeared from the antarctic peninsula. the so-called chinstrap penguin is among those affected, with population numbers plummeting. steve: the declines that we've seen are definitely dramatic.

now will they continue, that's the question. are there enough krill, does the population stabilize? there are plenty of chinstrap penguins in the world, they're not going to go immediately extinct in the next couple of decades. reporter: numbers of emperor penguins have so far remained stable because temperatures in southern antarctica where they make their home haven't been affected as badly. but scientists are seeking to predict what changes can be expected in the future. that involves examining chicks that have fallen victim to the harsh winter winds. alexander winterl from the university of erlangen is working on one of the world's most comprehensive long-term studies. alexander: these chicks presumably died two or three months ago. we can see that from their size. since then, they've been preserved in the ice. it's not uncommon for emperor

chicks to die young, the conditions here are just very harsh. reporter: but the size of the colony remains stable. nature appears to factor into the infant mortality rate. the scientists are also looking for penguins that they tagged years ago with gps sensors. they want to know how far the penguins stray from the colony while hunting. using high-resolution cameras, the scientists observe the colony throughout the year. in winter, the entire colony huddles together. alexander: each bird aims to expend as little energy as possible in the cold winter when they're rearing young. so they try to optimize their position in the colony. the fascinating thing is that they operate as a collective in a very orderly way without having a leader to tell them what to do. reporter: all penguin experts are

concerned about global warming. the impact would be devastating if the sea started melting earlier. osama: if we stick to the 1.5 or 2 degrees of warming agreed in the paris accord, we can save this species. if not, it will vanish by the end of this century at the latest. reporter: an exact prognosis is hard to make. but what's clear is sooner or later, climate change is going to threaten the future of the emperor penguin. host: sachets -- handy, but a nightmare for the environment. in our web special, we chart the journey of such a sachet -- from the origins of the raw materials it's made from to its end on the rubbish heap. we find out why the number of sachets is growing. and why they're so lucrative for businesses. and so disastrous for our planet find out more at dw.com/plastic.

♪ that's all from us at “global 3000” this time! don't forget to drop us a line with your views. write to global3000@dw.com and check us out on facebook dw global ideas. see you next week! [captioning performed by the

♪ brent: this is dw news. live from berlin. tonight, a warning from russia of more rocket attacks on kyiv. [air raid siren] air raid sirens are sounding more fquently in the ukrainian capital, and it comes a day after ukraine's military said it helped sink a russian worship. -- russian war ship. and reflections on the