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2. Securing ASEAN’s Food Resilience Amidst the Middle East Conflict
- Author:
- Jose M. L. Montesclaros, Kayven Tan, and Mely Caballero-Anthony
- Publication Date:
- 03-2026
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- The Middle East conflict is set to have a double-whammy impact on both ASEAN’s import of fertilisers, and its energy-intensive fertiliser production. The timing is critical as in the coming months, the five major crops, including rice, are being planted in ASEAN.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Food Security, Resilience, and ASEAN
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Asia
3. The decline of French agriculture in Europe
- Author:
- Bernard Bourget
- Publication Date:
- 02-2026
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Robert Schuman Foundation (RSF)
- Abstract:
- The farmers' protests of the winter 2025-2026 are an amplified replica of those of two years ago, mainly in France, due in particular to competition between, on the one hand, the FNSEA[1] (Fédération nationale des syndicats d’exploitants agricoles) and the Young Farmers, and on the other hand, the very aggressive Coordination Rurale and the Confédération Paysanne. These protests focused on two issues: - The management of the contagious nodular dermatitis (CND) crisis, more specifically the opposition to the slaughter of all infected herds, even though this radical method has proven effective in Savoie and Haute-Savoie, where it has eradicated the disease. - The free trade agreement between the European Union and the four MERCOSUR countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay), which is currently awaiting approval. It is also the expression of a deep unease among French farmers, who have faced a series of difficulties in recent years that have not been experienced with the same intensity by their counterparts in other Member States. The causes of these difficulties therefore need to be analyzed. In Jean-Luc Demarty’s opinion[2], the main cause is the loss of competitiveness of French agriculture on the European market, which is reflected in an increase in agricultural income in France of only 17% between 2010 and 2024, well below the European average (77%) and that of Spain (79%), Poland (86%) or Italy (170%). The reasons why the agri-food trade balance of France has collapsed must also be examined. It was only positive of 200 Million euros in 2025. In recent years, French agriculture has had to grapple with health, climate and economic crises. The health crises have affected cattle (epizootic haemorrhagic disease and contagious nodular dermatosis), sheep (bluetongue) and poultry farms (avian influenza), while pig farms are still threatened by African swine fever. Climate change is having a severe impact on French agriculture, with successive droughts, floods and spring frosts. While health and climate crises also affect agriculture in other Member States, it is in the area of foreign trade that French agriculture is clearly hardest hit, particularly by moves by China and the United States to target wines and spirits, the leading export item for the French agri-food industry. The cereal sector, which is the second largest agri-food export item, is suffering from competition from the Black Sea countries and, above all, from Russia's offensive for wheat on African markets. The Algerian market was thus lost in 2025 in the context of that country's dispute with France, while the price of wheat is currently below $200 per tonne, (below the average production cost for French farmers), and the European Commission wants to tax imports of nitrogen fertilisers from Russia and Belarus as part of the carbon border adjustment mechanism.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Climate Change, European Union, Protests, Free Trade, and Health Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Europe and France
4. As US food aid retreats, can BRICS+ and biotechnology fill the world’s food security gap?
- Author:
- Cullen S. Hendrix
- Publication Date:
- 01-2026
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
- Abstract:
- Cuts to agricultural development assistance and food aid by the United States and other advanced economies are creating a global vacuum just as climate change and conflict drive global hunger up. Many food-insecure developing economies with significant hunger lack the resources to self-finance agricultural research and development (R&D) and have had to depend increasingly on themselves—and one another—to meet rising food needs. Hendrix argues that the BRICS+ economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia—are well positioned to fill the world’s food security gap.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Markets, Foreign Aid, BRICS, Food Assistance, and Biotechnology
- Political Geography:
- North America, Global Focus, and United States of America
5. Eradication of Sparrows and the Great Famine in China
- Author:
- Eyal G. Frank, Shaoda Wang, Qinyun Wang, Xuebin Wang, and Yang You
- Publication Date:
- 01-2026
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Scientists, politicians, and popular media frequently argue that the continued degradation of ecosystems will negatively affect human well-being. Warnings regarding the devastating consequences of ecosystem collapses have emphasized the complex interactions between natural systems, particularly how agriculture connects with surrounding ecosystems. While the potentially catastrophic costs of these events have long been theorized, empirical evidence remains scarce. The rarity of ecosystem collapses, the difficulty of clearly tracing their triggers, and the lack of detailed data pose significant barriers to rigorous empirical investigations.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, History, Famine, and Ecosystem
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
6. The G7 and Sustainable Agri-Food Systems’ Transformation: Lessons Learned from the Italian Presidency
- Author:
- Daniele Fattibene
- Publication Date:
- 02-2025
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- Italy put a strong emphasis on food and nutrition security during its 2024 G7 Presidency, designing or scaling up plans to transform global food systems. Although the Italian presidency was able to gather consensus on key dimensions such as the food and climate nexus or development finance, structural weaknesses remain. Among them, the limited representation of Global South interests, the lack of space for civil society and farmers’ organisations in the decision-making process and the institutional rivalry between the Finance and the Development Tracks. While the G7 can more easily mobilise consensus and financial solutions to tackle global hunger, it has gradually lost ground to settings such as the G20 or the UN climate conference generally known as COP. The G7 must align its food-security solutions with those designed by other global partners (the G20 Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, or the EU’s Global Gateway) that can more effectively address food insecurity, while tackling all the barriers that make it too risky for local actors and the private sector to invest in sustainable agri-food systems transformation.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Climate Change, Food Security, and G7
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Italy
7. Left to Live and Die: Resource Security and the Biopolitics of Land Stockpiling in China
- Author:
- Ross Doll
- Publication Date:
- 02-2025
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
- Abstract:
- February 27, 2025 — Beginning in 2007 the Chinese state used liberalizing policy and funding to encourage the expansion of large-scale grain farming. Despite this support, many of the new farms have financially struggled and folded. Drawing on Foucauldian biopolitics and resource security literature, Ross Doll argues that with modernized agriculture the state primarily sought to create not commercial farms but redundant farming infrastructure, which it needed to buffer its growing reliance on food imports while abiding by the global trade regulations needed to sustain its urban export manufacturing economy. Ross Doll is a lecturer in the UC-Berkeley Blum Center for Developing Economies. He researches agrarian change in Asia drawing on political ecology, cultural geography, and resilience ecology. Based on longterm ethnography, his current research considers the origins and influence of contemporary state-led agricultural modernization in the Yangzi Delta region of China, focusing on food security, landscape, and rural politics. Dr. Doll teaches courses on the geographies of natural resources, global and Asian development, and global poverty. He holds a PhD in Geography and a MA in China Studies from the University of Washington. This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and co-sponsored by China Center for Social Policy.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Manufacturing, Imports, Farming, Biopolitics, Political Ecology, and Resources
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
8. Inequality and agricultural structural change: Evidence from macro and microdata, 1950–present
- Author:
- Matthew Fisher-Post
- Publication Date:
- 02-2025
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Since 1950, agricultural productivity has been increasing even as labourers leave agriculture. However, while average productivity of the sector has been converging, within-sector inequality has been increasing. Agricultural income inequality is still less than overall income inequality, but it measures significantly higher when we use higher-quality and more comprehensive survey data. This means not only to observe the entirety of household farm income, but also to measure the magnitude of capital income and corporate profits in the sector. Given the likely increase in agricultural inequality during the process of structural change, I show also the extent to which social protection programmes are both insufficient and poorly targeted for rural populations.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Development, Food Security, and Inequality
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
9. How reliable are national accounts estimates of agricultural output?
- Author:
- Sam Jones and Marcelo Mucocana
- Publication Date:
- 02-2025
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United Nations University
- Abstract:
- Measurement errors in macroeconomic aggregates such as GDP have been widely lamented, particularly in low-income contexts. This study investigates the reliability of one component of national accounts, agricultural sector output. Focusing first on the case of Mozambique, we use a series of 12 harmonized national agricultural micro-surveys to construct estimates of gross annual output in the sector. Compared to corresponding national accounts values for the period 2002–20, the micro-survey estimates are about 50% lower. A decomposition exercise indicates this gap is primarily driven by differences in base year levels, offset by higher rates of inflation observed in survey-based producer prices. Triangulating these estimates using household budget surveys, market price, and FAO production data, we find consistent support for the agricultural micro-survey estimates, suggesting real rates of total GDP growth may have been overestimated by 1 percentage point over the period. A cross-country comparison of national accounts and FAO production data indicates positive differences between estimates of agricultural output from the two sources are not unique to Mozambique, but with larger discrepancies among lower-income countries. Systematic investment in reliable and timely agricultural statistics is essential to track progress in the sector.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, GDP, Macroeconomics, and Survey
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Mozambique
10. The Private Sphere Trap: Women and the climate crisis in Iraq
- Author:
- Laila Barhoum
- Publication Date:
- 06-2025
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- This Oxfam briefing paper examines the intersection of gender inequality and climate change in Iraq, focusing on the agricultural sector. Women in Iraq face systemic barriers that confine them to the "private sphere," limiting their participation in decision-making processes critical to climate adaptation and mitigation. Through qualitative research, including focus group discussions and key informant interviews, the paper highlights how social norms, economic dependency, and lack of access to resources exacerbate women’s vulnerability to climate impacts. It provides actionable recommendations to foster inclusive climate action, such as raising awareness, leveraging respected female leaders, and improving technical support for farmers. The report underscores the urgent need to dismantle male-dominated structures to build a resilient and equitable future for Iraq.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Climate Change, Inequality, Rural, Decision-Making, Adaptation, Livelihoods, Gender, and Social Norms
- Political Geography:
- Iraq and Middle East