THE UN food chief warned on Thursday that the world is facing “a perfect storm on top of a perfect storm” and urged donors, particularly Gulf nations and billionaires, to give a few days of profits to tackle a crisis with the fertiliser supply and prevent widespread food shortages next year.

“Otherwise, there’s gonna be chaos all over the world,” World Food Programme (WFP) executive director David Beasley said.

Mr Beasley said that when he took the helm of WFP in 2017, only 80 million people around the world were headed toward starvation.

But the climate crisis has increased that number to 135 million. The Covid-19 pandemic doubled it to 276 million people. And finally, Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, sparking a war and a food, fertiliser and energy crisis that has pushed the number to 345 million.

“Within that are 50 million people in 45 countries knocking on famine’s door,” Mr Beasley said. “If we don’t reach these people, you will have famine, starvation, destabilisation of nations unlike anything we saw in 2007-08 and 2011, and you will have mass migration.

“It’s a perfect storm on top of a perfect storm. And with the fertiliser crisis we’re facing right now, with droughts, we’re facing a food pricing problem in 2022. This created havoc around the world.

“If we don’t get on top of this quickly — and I don’t mean next year, I mean this year — you will have a food availability problem in 2023,” he said. “And that’s gonna be hell.”