Food Insecurity and the Fragility of Global Supply Chains

The world systems are in cracking food with gruesome human implications. Nevertheless, the last ten years of progress in reducing hunger have been reversed during the recent years: conflict, extreme weather, economic crises and destroyed supply chains have collaborated to push tens of millions of people into acute food insecurity. This change of course is noted in the final report of the FAO, which is titled State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) and notes that a major structural fact contributing to the current crisis is the weakness of supply chains.

The rate at which the vulnerability of global supply chains is transformed into hunger is two interrelated processes. To begin with, there are strong connections in food systems in the modern world, and that they are geared towards cutting costs, rather than redundancy that makes them good in good times, and weak in the face of shocks, be it a pandemic closing down processing plants or a war that stops the export of fertilizer and grain. The World Bank reports of recent shocks have contained within them the stress on the higher costs of fuel and foreign exchange and transport congestion as raising the cost and time of deliveries, and the impact trickle down the ports to the rural markets and the smallholder farmers.

Second, food supply-chain is extremely sensitive to pressure. Once the transport, storage or input markets (seeds, fertilizer, and fuel) can be affected, prices are soon surging upwards and the first to lose out on the meals or switch diets to unhealthy ones are the poor households who spend a substantial part of their income on food. FAO Food Price Index and SOFI analysis point to increasing prices in 2021–2023 and the continued volatility has led to reduced access to food even in places where the total production was adequate.

Conflict and lack of funds add to these market failures. The contributions of acute hunger to crisis levels requiring emergency action are explained in the World Food Programme (WFP) Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) and operational updates of 2024–25 documents and how the disruption of aid has increased the pressure on local market and supply chains. A simple logistical failure in weak states where infrastructure and institutions are poorly built and managed can expose entire populations to food deprivation to famine.

What policy alternatives do you think can make it less fragile? First, create strategic redundancy on strategic areas: diversified sources of imports, local grain stores and decentralized processing such that one event does not turn into a disaster. Second, invest in logistics enhancement rural roads and cold-chain warehouses, capacity and modernization of customs, such that food can be moved out of surplus and deficit areas within less time and at lower cost. The World Bank connectivity and integrated transport projects show resilience improvement which can be calculated in case these bottlenecks are resolved.

Third, offer protection to the most vulnerable through special social-protection programs and flexible humanitarian capital. The warnings given by WFP about the donor cutoff focus on the fact that the emergency response should not be an alternative to the regular safety nets which stabilizes the demand and prevent irreversible malnutrition. Fourth, reduce systemic exposure to the input shocks by supporting local alternatives to fertilizers, climate-vulnerable agriculture and trade alliance that supports markets during crises.

Finally, the world must make resilience of food-system a development and security issue. This means to liaise the trade policy, fiscal support and humanitarian planning in such a manner that neither the commercial nor the humanitarian supply lines are cut off in the case of crisis. It also requires enhanced early warning systems, preparing logistics beforehand to take food to the areas of its need before hunger has reached uncontrollable levels.

This problem can be solved, but it will demand efforts on the part of the policymakers to stop considering the shocks as one-off incidences and reorganize the food systems to be volatile. When the times are stable, efficiency will offer lower costs; when times are unstable; the resilience will save lives. Supply chain strengthening, protection of vulnerable households and sustenance of humanitarian finance are complementary of one another, and the three together can turn what is becoming a period of growing food insecurity to a period of resilience obtained through hard work.