Hannah Boller
I lately discovered myself conversing with somebody who believed it was their job to level out that the subject for my grasp’s thesis was completely ineffective. “Meals will not be value finding out, and historical past even much less helpful. I’m unsure why you’d go to high school to check that.” Most individuals eat thrice a day, perhaps have a few snacks, exit for drinks on the weekend, and plan birthday dinners weeks upfront; in case you are privileged to stay within the International North, meals and meals tradition are assumed rights.
And but, in 2025, there’s a international meals disaster. Statistics Canada reviews that in 2023 a median of 25.5% of Canadians have been experiencing meals insecurity, with households residing within the Northwest Territories and Nunavut presenting disproportionate charges of 34.2% and 58.1% respectively. As of February 2025, the World Meals Programme reported that 5 million Ukrainians are experiencing meals insecurity, with severity growing as the gap to the frontlines decreases. In a time of local weather change, sustained battle, and financial uncertainty, a lot of the worldwide inhabitants is experiencing meals insecurity and in 2025 there have been two confirmed famines in Gaza and Sudan.
Within the mid-Twentieth century, an identical set of variables—conflict, political and ideological hunger ways, and the ensuing lack of labour and land—led to meals insecurity on the European continent and agricultural meals manufacturing skilled important upheaval. Twenty million individuals died of hunger or food-related illness throughout the Second World Conflict.[1] Nonetheless, much less acknowledged was the affect of widespread and chronic meals insecurity after the battle. The Allies, whereas not legally ‘responsibility sure’ to offer support because the victors of the conflict, shortly realized the extent of the harm and the necessity for intervention. In 1948, US President Truman signed the Marshall Plan into place, offering support to Europe.
Area-Marshall Montgomery, the pinnacle of the British occupied zone, had seen first-hand the impact of inflexible adherence to directives after the Nice Conflict and as a substitute referred to as for assist preventing the 1945/1946 “Battle of the Winter,” which centred across the pervasive hunger and illness he noticed as soon as he had boots on the bottom. He felt that Britain was accountable for offering support, particularly meals and drugs, to interrupt the cycle of inflexible reparations and compelled disgrace imposed on Germany after the First World Conflict. Support largely got here from Canada and america.
France too skilled meals insecurity and hunger within the years after the conflict. Holland had suffered by the Dutch Famine within the final 12 months of the conflict. Fields in continental Europe had been a battle floor and meals provide chains mirrored the breakdown in meals manufacturing that occurred because of the conflict. So, not solely is meals value finding out, however we are able to study lots from meals within the historic context of conflict and post-war restoration, even informing coverage as we achieve this. With conflict ongoing in 40 international locations globally, the stakes are excessive.
Take the plight of Ukraine, the place battle began in 2014 with the invasion and annexation of Crimea earlier than intensifying with the 2022 Russian invasion and the outbreak, correctly talking, of the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict. Nicknamed the ‘bread basket’ of Europe, Ukraine has lengthy been a number one producer of agricultural sources. Simply earlier than the conflict started, Ukraine’s meals and grain exports have been feeding 400 million individuals. However through the 2022-2023 season, whole grain manufacturing in Ukraine dropped by 29%. International locations of the International South have borne the brunt of the ensuing commerce uncertainty, particularly through the provide chain disruption of the 2022 Black Sea Blockade, which disproportionately hit nations in Africa and Asia which have historically acquired 92% of Ukrainian grain. Whereas much less analysis is obtainable for the 2023-2024 and the 2024-2025 seasons, an article revealed in 2024 exploited satellite tv for pc information to estimate yields and talk about the affect of commerce disruption on the worldwide economic system.[2] The authors concluded that lowered agricultural manufacturing in Ukraine would probably proceed to have an effect on poorer international locations inside the established Ukrainian commerce community and the “Grain from Ukraine” program. However does this development observe the identical patterns as agriculture and commerce in World Conflict II?
Whereas it is not uncommon data that the Holocaust was a genocide and that important crimes in opposition to humanity occurred throughout World Conflict II, a lot much less well-known is the extent to which these actions have been justified on the grounds of meals sovereignty and the way a lot they needed to do with the collision between meals and beliefs. Gesine Gerhard’s e-book, Nazi Starvation Politics: A Historical past of Meals within the Third Reich, argues that the preliminary goals of the Nazi’s insurance policies and actions have been to grow to be meals sovereign and require solely sources from their very own land.[3] Gerhard exhibits that the Nazi pastoral dream required the taking of land to the east in order that Germans may farm and produce self-sustainably.[4]
Does Russia immediately share these goals? Vladimir Putin has recognized his motivation for the present conflict as a need to“demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine. Whereas this framing doesn’t allude to any specific food-based financial or territorial objectives, Russia has and continues to profit financially from the Black Sea Blockade. The yo-yo impact of their coming and going help for the Black Sea Grain Initiative undermined Ukraine’s means to move grain by sea and threw the provision chain into chaos. Because of controlling and, thereby, decreasing Ukrainian exports, Russia has gained from growing its personal grain exports in recent times. Their “loot[ing]..of agricultural merchandise and liquid steel merchandise but in addition agricultural equipment and…factories” additional suggests that there’s a food-related financial component at play. Certainly, in 2014 Russia applied an import substitution coverage as a primary step in a plan for full meals sovereignty. By implementing these rules, Russia required sometimes imported items to get replaced with gadgets made or grown within the boundaries of their nation. The coverage has not succeeded to date and, prior to now few years, Russia has continued to import $35 billion value of foodstuffs from strategic companions, particularly those that haven’t imposed sanctions (China, Turkey, and India amongst others).
Additional evaluation of the parallels between Putin’s Russia and Nazi Germany on this entrance can, and sure might be, undertaken by students. Nonetheless, the affect of food-sovereign goals in spurring and shaping wars just like the one in Ukraine are value figuring out now. Because of deeply intertwined provide chains, anyone occasion is felt by different nations keenly. If we have been to expertise the widespread meals shortages that Germany skilled within the aftermath of WWII there would probably be unprecedented pressure on the higher meals useful resource system. The meals disaster and insecurity in Germany persevered for practically a decade, which illustrates the magnitude of intervention wanted after battle.[5] Each the UN Meals and Agriculture Group (1945) and subsequent World Meals Programme (1961) have been born out of the post-war devastation. Persistently, for 80 years, these organizations have inserted themselves and supplied support in international locations which are on the point of hunger. Each companies report that they’re already bracing for poor harvests and higher want in 2026. The place does this depart us?
Alice Weinreb, in her article on German starvation after World Conflict II, explains that neither the Allied “army nor medical strategists plann[ed]…to assist Germans…” due to their assumption that Germany had not reported a “meals downside” through the course of the conflict.[6] However on the shut of the conflict, she argues, there was in reality a “international hunger-landscape.”[7] Whereas World Conflict II was, as its identify suggests, a much more all-encompassing battle, it isn’t unreasonable to fret that the established results of the current conflict on Ukrainian agriculture, related provide chain disruption, and the at present reported meals insecurity are indicators for the potential of higher points sooner or later. Whereas assuaging acute famine in conflict zones is entrance of thoughts now, post-conflict support and infrastructure help in Ukraine and elsewhere must also be some extent of focus. Whereas it could appear morally backwards to match the post-war scenario in Germany to that of Ukraine—“weren’t these Germans within the unsuitable anyway?”—and that sending meals support to Ukraine could be much more righteous and computerized, that is largely a moot level. As soon as the battle has come to a detailed, as indicated within the spirit of the Rome Statutes, it have to be our preeminent focus to rebuild meals programs to disallow struggling. Meals and its historical past can permit us to raised anticipate and react, relatively than ready for the disaster to be upon us. There is no such thing as a want for individuals to starve.
[1] E. M. Collingham, The Style of Conflict: World Conflict Two and the Battle for Meals, A. Lane, 2011, 1.
[2] Nan Jia,Zilong Xia, Yinshuai Li, et al, “The Russia-Ukraine Conflict Decreased Meals Manufacturing and Exports with a Disparate Geographical Impression Worldwide,” Communications Earth & Setting 5, no. 1 (2024): 765.
[3] Gesine Gerhard, Nazi Starvation Politics: A Historical past of Meals within the Third Reich. 1st ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015.
[4] Gerhard, Nazi Starvation Politics, passim.
[5] Bryan McDonald, “Studying from Failure: Postwar Efforts to Set up a World Meals Reserve,” Meals Research: An Interdisciplinary Journal 8, no. 4 (2018): 1–15.
[6] Alice Weinreb, “‘For the Hungry Have No Previous nor Do They Belong to a Political Occasion’: Debates over German Starvation after World Conflict II,” Central European Historical past 45, no. 1 (2012): 51.
[7] Alice Weinreb, “‘For the Hungry Have No Previous,” 52.
Hannah Boller is a graduate pupil on the College of Calgary engaged on her grasp’s thesis, “‘Meals Will Win the Conflict,’ however the Restoration will Depart you Hungry,” analysis for which is supported partly by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Analysis Council of Canada.
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