The latest shock to global food systems, triggered by conflict in the Middle East and disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, has once again exposed a fragile truth: the world’s food systems remain highly vulnerable to external shocks.
Agriculture sustains millions of people in Zimbabwe, serving as a vital source of both food and income. But climate-related pressures affecting land, crops, rainfall patterns, and increasing pest outbreaks are threatening smallholder farmers’ harvests, leaving them food insecure.
Transnational agribusinesses increasingly shape food policies worldwide. Claiming to best address recent food security concerns, they seek to profit more from innovations in food production, processing, and distribution.
As the global target to eliminate hunger by 2030 fast slips out of reach, investing in how the world feeds itself is the only way to avert a crisis.
When catastrophic floods swept through the Haor wetlands of Sunamganj in 2022, they destroyed far more than homes and crops. They shattered childhoods.
Despite the implementation of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel last October, Israeli forces continue to launch airstrikes into the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This has resulted in extensive destruction of infrastructure, loss of human life and exacerbating immense health needs amid an increasingly strained health system in Gaza.
For decades, pesticides have been a quiet pillar of Malawi’s agriculture, guarding crops against pests, improving yields, and sustaining millions of livelihoods. But beneath this success story lay a troubling reality: weak regulation, unsafe handling practices, and growing threats to human health and the environment.
A newly published
review in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment has revealed disturbing statistics on the growing environmental threats posed by global food production. The global food system, designed to feed and nourish humanity, is now a major contributor to
climate change via
greenhouse gas emissions, and the largest driver of
freshwater depletion,
biodiversity loss, and
nutrient pollution.
Across Europe, winter wheat is already in the ground. What farmers apply in the coming weeks will determine the size of this year’s harvest. Those decisions are now being made under a sudden surge in costs that did not exist when seeds went in.
In 2026, the humanitarian situation in South Sudan has taken a considerable turn for the worse, with widespread food shortages, ongoing disruptions to food production systems, and rising rates of malnutrition affecting over half of the population. Compounded by the vast scale of needs and an overwhelming lack of access to basic services, humanitarian experts warn that nationwide levels of hunger are projected to worsen to catastrophic levels if urgent intervention is not secured.
As the United States and Israel’s 2026 attack on Iran remains on pause, most eyes have fixed on oil. Tankers reroute around the Strait of Hormuz, oil benchmarks climb, and insurance costs spike. But while the headlines focus on energy, warning signs are already flashing from the food commodities markets.
In the bustling Chifubu constituency of Ndola, the provincial capital of Zambia’s mineral-rich Copperbelt Province, 31-year-old Victoria Bwalya is usually among the early risers, cleaning and setting up for the day in her restaurant business.
Lydia Hagodana stands next to a bee yard (apiary) in Golbanti, Tana Delta, where she lives. The air carries a low, steady hum as bees move in and out in a constant stream. She lifts the back of one hive slightly, gauging its weight.
Fearing the Middle East war could drive millions into hunger and cripple economies, Africa’s leading institutions are drafting a strategy to mobilise domestic and "innovative" finance and harness national competitiveness to stabilise food, fuel, and fertiliser supplies.
Over 800 households in Ikolomani Constituency in Kakamega County, Western Kenya, fear eviction to pave the way for a British firm, Shanta Gold Limited, to begin extracting gold valued at Sh683 billion ($5.29 billion) on an estimated 337 acres of residential and agricultural land.
At Mazimbu village, not far from Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Stephano Jaka still remembers the night he trapped and killed a rat that had been feasting on his maize cobs – stored in a meticulously woven basket designed to protect grains from rodents.
Environmental activists and farmer groups opposed to the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), the world's longest heated oil pipeline, are mounting a last-ditch legal effort meant to stop its construction in a suit they plan to have filed in London, UK, believing that it stands a chance to stop the controversial project despite being at the 78 percent completion stage.
While media coverage of Iran’s restrictions on passage through the Hormuz Straits focuses on fuel prices, partial closure is also
disrupting crucial fertiliser and other supplies, risking catastrophe for billions worldwide.
The current conflict in Iran and the Middle East region threatens to disrupt the global energy and agri-food sectors, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz affects oil and fertilizer exports for farmers during critical harvest seasons.
Professor Kaveh Madani of Iran has been named the 2026 Stockholm Water Prize laureate. The award will be formally presented by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in August during World Water Week in Stockholm.