Authored by Agnes Kalibata, FOLU Ambassador and former President of AGRA and Alessia Mortara, Director of Global Insights and Engagement, FOLU
As leaders convene in Munich this week, the mood is understandably sober. Wars are grinding on. Trade tensions are rising. Aid budgets are shrinking. Multilateral institutions are under strain. The agenda will centre on deterrence, defence spending and diplomacy. But there is a critical issue that belongs at the heart of the security conversation — not on its margins: Food.
Not simply as a humanitarian concern and not as an agricultural issue. But as a matter of macroeconomic stability and geopolitical risk. Food systems and the governance of how food is produced, traded and priced now sit at the intersection of conflict, climate and economic resilience.
Food systems are both shaped by geopolitics and are drivers of geopolitical risks themselves. Ignoring this reality is no longer affordable.
Food as a geopolitical instrument
The past three years have offered a stark lesson in how quickly food can become a strategic lever. When grain exports from the Black Sea were disrupted after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global wheat prices surged. Import-dependent countries across North Africa and the Middle East saw subsidy costs balloon. Fiscal deficits widened. Currency reserves came under pressure. Even temporary export restrictions by major rice or wheat exporters have triggered disproportionate global price spikes, not because supply vanished, but because confidence did.
Markets react to signals as much as to shortages.
At the same time, development assistance for agriculture is stagnating or declining, just as climate volatility intensifies. Trade routes are increasingly vulnerable to conflict. And tariffs and export bans are deployed as tools of negotiation.
The result is a creeping shift toward food nationalism. Governments speak more frequently of “self-sufficiency” and “food sovereignty”. Yet no country is truly self-sufficient in food. And none should aim to be. Trade and interdependence, when responsibly governed, is a source of resilience. But interdependence without trust becomes fragility.
For low-income, food-importing countries, this new environment narrows fiscal space dramatically. Food often accounts for 30–50% of consumer price indices in emerging markets and a climate-induced production shock translates directly into inflation. Central banks tighten policy. Growth slows. Debt burdens rise. What begins as a harvest failure can quickly become a macroeconomic crisis.
When food fails, stability fails
History has repeatedly demonstrated that food insecurity is not merely a consequence of instability; it can be a catalyst. Case in example is the 2008 global food crisis that saw staple prices double in some regions. Protests erupted in more than 30 countries. Food price shocks were not the sole driver of subsequent political upheavals across North Africa and the Middle East, but they were an accelerant.
When bread becomes unaffordable, governments fall. When harvests fail, migration increases. When trade corridors close, political tensions escalate. Food systems are therefore not peripheral to security. They are foundational to it.
Agriculture and food industries employ billions of people worldwide and anchor rural economies. They shape trade balances and foreign exchange reserves. They influence healthcare expenditures and labour productivity through nutrition outcomes. They determine inflation trajectories and growth projections. Climate change compounds these risks: droughts reduce yields, floods disrupt logistics, extreme heat lowers labour productivity and soil degradation, and water scarcity erode long-term growth potential. The financial costs of disaster relief and import subsidies rise just as tax revenues weaken and shrink. Therefore, it is time for the world to see food systems for what they are – they determine whether economies absorb shocks — or fracture under them.
Protecting what works
This moment of fragmentation is dangerous, but it is also clarifying. It forces policymakers to distinguish between what must evolve and what must be preserved. One principal worth defending is open and predictable food trade. Over recent decades, global food trade has lowered consumer prices, smoothed supply shocks and expanded dietary diversity. It has allowed countries to specialize according to comparative advantage. It has underpinned food security for net importers and growth for exporters alike. But open trade cannot survive amid unchecked protectionism and arbitrary export bans. Nor can it endure in a system that produces structural winners and losers without adjustment mechanisms.
If broad multilateral consensus proves elusive, smaller coalitions — regional partnerships, bilateral frameworks, agile platforms — must sustain cooperation around market transparency and emergency response. Fragmentation need not mean isolation. It can mean a proliferation of pragmatic alliances that keep food flowing.
Reframing food systems as economic strategy
For too long, food systems transformation has been framed primarily as a moral imperative or environmental necessity. It is both. But even more fundamental: it is an economic strategy for an otherwise failing food system. Investing in resilient food systems is not charitable spending. It is risk management. For example, reducing post-harvest losses lowers import dependency. Climate-resilient seed systems reduce future disaster spending. Improved nutrition enhances labour productivity and reduces long-term healthcare costs. Strengthened regional trade corridors stabilize prices and moderate inflation volatility. Underinvesting in food systems is not fiscally prudent. It is fiscally reckless.
When properly framed, food system investments do not compete with defense or energy spending. They reduce the long-term fiscal pressures that instability and climate shocks impose. Security is not built by weapons systems alone. It is built by stable societies, resilient economies and citizens who can afford to eat.
A choice in Munich
The leaders gathered in Munich are rightly focused on an increasingly insecure world. But if security discussions exclude food systems, they omit one of the most powerful levers of both risk and resilience. This period of geopolitical disruption can produce deeper fragmentation. Or it can catalyse a more strategically governed, economically grounded global food system. The choice is not between defence and food security. It is between short-term reaction and long-term resilience. If policymakers recognize food systems as central to macroeconomic stability and geopolitical risk management, Munich 2026 will be remembered as the point at which security was redefined more intelligently. Munich is a chance for leaders to ensure that food is not a side issue. It is the missing security issue.
