German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development from the SPD, Svenja Schulze warned in an interview with Bild that the world is threatened by an acute crisis due to dizzying food prices.

"The situation is very dramatic.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, extreme drought and war in Ukraine, world food prices have risen by a third and are now at record levels.

The World Food Program currently estimates that more than 300 million people suffer from acute hunger and need to continually adjust their numbers, raising estimates.

"The sad message is that we are facing the biggest famine crisis since World War II, millions of people will die," Schulze said.

She answered the question of whether it is okay for Germany to turn grain into green fuel when people around the world are starving to death.

"It's not fair.

No one wants to be responsible for increasing the number of hungry people in the world.

We need to stop food from entering the car tank - whether wheat, palm oil or corn.

4.4% by weight of fuel is food for humans and animals.

This should be reduced to zero, not only in Germany, but as much as possible internationally.

In Germany, we pour 2.5 billion liters of vegetable oil fuel into car tanks every year.

"This is almost half of the harvest of sunflower oil in Ukraine," she added.

The German minister also commented on the role of Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the upcoming crisis.

"Putin uses hunger to make war.

He benefits from the fact that many countries around the world depend on Russian and Ukrainian agricultural products.

He stole grain from Ukraine and will export it to countries that are obviously pro-Russian.

At the UN General Assembly, 40 countries, home to half the world's population, did not condemn Putin's aggression.

"This is the concrete result of the vulnerability to food blackmail," she said.

Asked if Germany should reduce development aid to countries that have not turned their backs on Putin, she said:

"On the contrary, we are pushing for any country that we have not won in the embrace of Russia.

We must not choose that path.

We need to make as many countries as possible independent of Putin.

For this reason, I have just approved an additional 50 million euros for Moldova and 27 million euros for Georgia.

"Moldova is extremely dependent on Russian electricity and gas, and both countries rightly fear Russian aggression."

/ KP /