Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, panicky headlines about a global wheat shortage appeared. As a crop scientist, I knew that wasn’t right. The regional supply crunch was real: Nations that source grain from the Black Sea suddenly had to order it from farther away, upsetting supply chains. But it wasn’t a global shortage. Thanks to record crops in India, Australia, and elsewhere, there was enough to feed everyone. We just had to move it.
You wouldn’t have guessed it from the news, though. Coverage of food supply chains featured scare tactics and distortion that drove speculation and trade restrictions, worsening the problem. By early July, global commodity prices finally fell to reflect the availability of food, rather than speculation. Yet while the panic was unfounded, the suffering it caused was real, immense, and unnecessary.
Next time, we need to get it right. Climate change, public health emergencies, and politics virtually guarantee we’ll keep seeing crunches in the food supply chain. But even in turbulent times, we can ensure food security around the world. We have the tools we need to get there.
To reach food security, though, many of us will have to abandon cherished ideas about how the food system should work. Around the world, both corporate food systems and wealthy landowners in rich nations put up heavy political and ideological barriers to commonsense practices. The food trade patterns they set up centuries ago—which rely heavily on large-scale, industrial agriculture—have left poorer countries unhealthily dependent on imports, with no other way to feed themselves when global trade falters.
Industrialized agriculture arose in the United States and in other former European colonies. Now it has been exported worldwide. It’s worth examining industrialized agriculture in its home setting to understand how policy can either entrench it or open up new possibilities. The public and policymakers have a choice: We can either continue to prop up food systems as they currently exist or invest in resilient, democratic, and sophisticated food systems to prevent future crises.
