Our food security is on shaky ground. The G7 must put that right 

The G7 leaders meeting in Germany this weekend must start to put the world food system on a more resilient footing, writes Olivier De Schutter.

Olivier De Schutter is co-chair of IPES-Food, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

The food crisis, sparked by the war on Ukraine, is making daily headlines. With around 20 million tonnes of grain stuck inside Ukraine, unrest erupting in countries from Indonesia to Iran, and hunger now predicted to affect 867 million people this year, the G7 meeting this weekend is under pressure to find a solution. Our leaders must get to work to relieve hunger urgently and build a more resilient food system for the long term.

Higher food prices are hitting many food-insecure countries and populations hard. Since the Ukraine invasion, the price of bread has doubled in Sudan and increased by 70% in Lebanon. Even small price rises can have devastating impacts on the poorest people, who spend as much as 60% of their income on food. 

So much, we know. But high prices aren’t necessarily reflecting a gap between demand and supply. In fact, contrary to popular belief, we are not currently facing a global shortage of food – wheat harvests reached a record high in 2021, stocks are reasonable, and we know the world produces enough food to feed everyone. 

Behind the geopolitics of blockades on Ukrainian grain is an untold story of a fragile, over-centralised food system, constructed and promoted by the G7 powers and their corporations, that has been vulnerable to shocks long before the tanks rolled in. 

Wheat is one of just three crops – along with maize and rice – that together provide half of the calories consumed around the world. Production of these exported staples is concentrated in a small number of countries, they are shipped around the world by only a handful of trading firms, and they are industrially grown from a narrow range of seed varieties. Is it any wonder that a war involving two countries that specialise in producing two of these staples should spark a major food crisis? 

Add to this mix dysfunctional commodity markets. Evidence suggests financial speculators are jumping into commodity investments and gambling on rising food prices. This can further exaggerate the effects of price shocks. Meanwhile, the “ABCD” giants that control the bulk of the world’s commercial grain trade – Archer-Daniels-Midland, Bunge, Cargill, and Dreyfus – hold large reserves of grain, but do not report them publicly, potentially holding off for yet higher prices, and making it impossible to get a clear view of global food reserves. This is likely exacerbating food price spikes and volatility, pushing the world’s poorest people into deeper hunger.

Layered on top of these dynamics are the vicious cycles of conflict, climate change, and poverty – squeezing harvests and leaving hundreds of millions of people without the ability to adapt to sudden food shocks. Key agricultural regions are currently facing the worst droughts for decades, including West and South Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, parts of Brazil and Argentina, as well as North America. Facing high debt burdens post-COVID, and rising food import bills, low-income nations face near-insurmountable barriers to building social protection systems to assist their most vulnerable populations. 

In sum, the world’s food security is on shaky ground. As we detail in a recent report from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), the centralised nature of the global food system creates vulnerabilities, which can have cascading consequences when there are disruptions to any part of it. These economies of scale might be designed for profitable efficiency. But they’re neither stable, resilient, nor dependable in the face of risks, especially for vulnerable people.

Many of the same underlying flaws in our global food system were already apparent in the 2007-2008 food price crisis. But they have not been adequately addressed by governments in the face of lobbying pressure from corporate players that benefit from the status quo. Now, those same lobbies are advocating to further ramp up industrial food production, suspend environmental regulations, and even reduce organic farming. Such short-sighted responses to the crisis are purely opportunistic, and will only exacerbate current trends.

When the world’s seven most powerful governments meet in Germany this weekend, they have a special responsibility to ease hunger and to start to put the food system on a more resilient footing. 

Cancelling debt for food import-dependent countries is essential to enable them to afford higher food import bills, provide social assistance to those most affected, and rebuild their own domestic food production. 

A crackdown on excessive commodity speculation, combined with measures to enhance transparency and reduce concentration in markets, is needed to stop food prices from being pushed up purely for profit.

Overall, diversity is key to more secure food systems in the long term. It’s what provides alternative options when shocks occur – spreading the risk. This includes transitioning to more resilient production systems – making the EU’s Farm To Fork strategy of paramount importance. The answer to climate change and fertiliser shortage is to reduce reliance on fertilisers and fossil energy in food production. 

This can only be achieved by countries investing in rebuilding their own food production, employing ecologically sound production practices, such as agroecology, finding alternative suppliers of staple food exports, and pooling grain reserves with neighbouring countries. 

This can’t happen too soon, because whether from conflict or climate change, more shocks are certain to come. Next time, we must be prepared.