• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires May 27, 2023
‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair May 23, 2023
Ontario Overrules Cities to Push Gas Plant Expansions May 23, 2023
Climate Concerns Drive Job Choices for 40% of Workers Under 40 May 23, 2023
PEROVSKITES: Qcells Plans First Production Line for ‘Miracle’ Solar Cell May 23, 2023
Next
Prev

World food trade runs chokepoint gauntlet

June 27, 2017
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Alex Kirby

 

A group of physical chokepoints – roads, ports and waterways – could disrupt the flow of world food trade, with drastic consequences.

LONDON, 27 June, 2017 – The sheer size of the world food trade is hard to digest. The amount of food transported around the world to fill empty stomachs is prodigious.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

Every year a global fleet of ships, trains and trucks moves enough of four staple crops – maize, wheat, rice and soya – internationally to feed about 2.8 billion people (more than one in three of us alive today). 

But this world food trade, which also includes agricultural fertilisers, is highly vulnerable, a new report says. The report, from the UK-based independent policy institute Chatham House, says there are a small number of key physical chokepoints where things could go wrong, with the risk of price rises, food shortages, and, as it puts it, “consequences that could reach beyond food markets”.

Security-critical

The report, Chokepoints and Vulnerabilities in Global Food Trade, identifies fourteen chokepoints as critical to global food security. Eight are maritime waterways, including the Panama and Suez canals and the Turkish Straits, which link the Black Sea to the Aegean and Mediterranean.

There are three inland chokepoints, including the US inland waterways and Brazil’s road network, and three coastal ones, including the Black Sea ports and those on the US Gulf Coast.

The report draws on data included in a new interactive online database, available to those researching the global resource trade.

Laura Wellesley, co-author of the report, says: “The risks are growing as we all trade more with each other and as climate change takes hold. The oil industry has been mapping this sort of risk for years but it has been woefully overlooked in discussions of food security.

“Past events, including floods in Brazil and the southern US, and the export bans on wheat from the Black Sea countries that contributed in part to the Arab Spring, give us a flavour of the sort of disruptions that can occur when chokepoints are closed.”

Chinese mitigation

The authors say the increasingly interrelated nature of the world food trade means that disruption to one trade route could have knock-on effects for others. The potential risk is both poorly understood and poorly managed, except by China, which “has done the most to mitigate its exposure to chokepoint risk.”

Beijing, they say, “is acutely aware of its exposures and actively invests in overseas infrastructure to relieve pressure on existing chokepoints, diversify supply routes, and increase its operational footprint along its supply chains.”

They also say the ongoing territorial dispute over the South China Sea may add to insecurity over food in the region. 

The report says more than half the global trade in soya, cereals and fertilisers passes through at least one maritime chokepoint, while 10% passes through a maritime chokepoint for which there is no viable alternative.

“Climate change is going to make things worse by increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, fuelling conflict, and damaging already-weakened infrastructure”

A fifth of global wheat exports transit the Turkish Straits each year, and four ports on Brazil’s southern coastline handle nearly a quarter of global soya exports.

The report identifies three main types of risk: political and institutional; conflict and security; and weather and climate. Laura Wellesley says: “Climate change is going to make things worse by increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, fuelling conflict, and damaging already-weakened infrastructure.” 

Nearly 25% of all food for direct human consumption is traded on international markets,  and the quantity is increasing. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is the world region most  dependent on food imports, especially on wheat from the Black Sea region coming through the Turkish Straits.

Just over a third of all grain imports to MENA passes through at least one maritime chokepoint for which there is no viable alternative. The report says the risk of disruption, given the political situation in the region, is high.

Low-income net food importers in sub-Saharan Africa, including Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Sudan, are also very exposed, as are Japan and South Korea.

Risks growing

Chatham House says the report is a “first-of-its-kind analysis”, but the wider problems of food security have attracted attention for years, and especially the probable impact of weather and climate. 

Other studies have examined the viability of different approaches to feeding the world. A report late last year warned of one consequence of the growth in human pressure. 

The report says the risks to the chokepoints are increasing as our dependency on them  grows. Chronic under-investment in infrastructure is a significant problem, and climate change, as so often, will multiply existing threats.

The authors write: “If a hurricane comparable in ferocity to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were to shut down US exports from the Gulf of Mexico at the same time as extreme rainfall rendered Brazil’s roads impassable (the latter happened in 2013), up to 50% of global soya exports could be affected.

“If this in turn occurred in conjunction with a Black Sea heatwave similar to the one recorded in 2010, around 64% of global soya shipments could be halted or delayed.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
42
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
56
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
29

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

August 2, 2022
3.7k
Martin Davis/Facebook

13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires

May 27, 2023
41
Arctic Circle/flickr

‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair

May 23, 2023
373
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
235
University of Oxford Press Office/flickr

PEROVSKITES: Qcells Plans First Production Line for ‘Miracle’ Solar Cell

May 23, 2023
401
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Ontario Overrules Cities to Push Gas Plant Expansions

May 23, 2023
851

Recent Posts

FMSC/Flickr

Waive Debt to Unlock Urgently Needed Adaptation Funds, Researchers Urge

May 27, 2023
13
Andrés Nieto Porras/wikimedia commons

‘Carbon Neutral’, ‘Net-Zero’ Claims Face Global Greenwash Crackdown

May 23, 2023
197
Activités culturelles UdeM/Flickr

Climate Concerns Drive Job Choices for 40% of Workers Under 40

May 23, 2023
155
peellden/Wikimedia Commons

Scientists Sound Alarm on Methane Emissions, Habitat Hazards at U.S. Hydro Dams

May 23, 2023
148
nakashi/flickr

Tokyo Residents Rally to Protect Trees, Stop Skyscrapers in Iconic Urban Park

May 21, 2023
478
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/unrecognizable-from-the-original-design-suburban-renovations-disprove-cookie-cutter-stereotype

Embrace Suburbs, Exurbs in Climate Planning, Researchers Urge Cities

May 21, 2023
47
Next Post

NuScale Pitches Mini-Nukes as Solar/Wind Backup

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}