Food Weaponisation: Building Food Resilience in the Global South

Food commodities are becoming strategic resources, increasingly viewed as important as oil and gas. Food is used as a tool of political control, where food export control or bans influence countries' behaviour and policy outcomes. For instance, Russia's actions in the Black Sea’s exports caused price spikes and forced strategic changes to the Black Sea Grain Initiative in favour of Moscow. The Russia-Ukraine ًar has showcased how food can be used as a weapon and how major food importers, like Egypt, have faced direct vulnerabilities impacting their food supply.

As governments continue to weaponise food supply to leverage their position in warfare and as climate change worsens, countries will increasingly treat food as a national security issue and reshape alliance-building. Countries could be more likely to depend on food weaponisation tools, as they appear to be effective in ongoing conflicts. Hence, the Global South and food importers are in danger of being exposed to increased starvation and political control from food exporters and wealthier nations that control food systems. The forecasts incite these countries to re-evaluate their strategies to curb the risk of food insecurity.

Although the weaponisation of food supply and the use of starvation of civilians as a tool of coercion are prohibited under international law, many incidents reflect the continuous use of these tactics. A country using food as a weapon involves a deliberate manipulation of food supplies, access, or quality, with the aim of suppressing or controlling a targeted group or strengthening its position in a conflict. The danger of food insecurity is that it is not limited to areas affected by the conflict, but it expands globally, particularly harming food importers.

Methods of food weaponisation vary from export bans, blockades and port closures, disruption of shipping routes, manipulation of food aid and humanitarian access, targeting agricultural infrastructure, conditioning food distribution with loyalty and compliance, and exploiting existing food insecurity to recruit people. The Russia-Ukraine war and Israel-Gaza War witnessed the employment of one or more methods.

Also, Russia used the Black Sea export route to exert control by targeting several attacks against Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, damaging port infrastructure facilities and civilian vessels, and destroying hundreds of thousands of metric tonnes of agricultural products. Disturbing Ukraine’s grain supply in the Black Sea route and targeting the country’s farmland and storage facilities damaged Ukraine’s agriculture and expanded to affect countries that relied heavily on Kyiv’s wheat.

The correlation of food insecurity and favourable policy outcomes is prominent in this case. Global price spikes are a result of Russia’s actions, and import-dependent states are severely affected, which forced the Black Sea Grain Initiative to be reshaped in favour of Moscow. Global Food supply from Ukraine dropped; during March, April, and May 2022, Ukraine’s wheat exports dropped by over 90%. Compared to 2021/2022, Ukraine’s grain production dropped by 29% in 2022/2023. U.N. 2024 data showed that only 13% of Ukraine’s grain exports under the Black Sea deal went to African countries.

In the same way, Israel deliberately prevented Palestinians from receiving food aid through a blockade, and humanitarian aid was tied to Israel’s political and security conditions. The manipulation of food aid and humanitarian access significantly contributed to achieving goals aligned with Israel’s security and policy objectives. The famine in Gaza represents a disturbing case of a state deliberately creating famine and threatening food security to achieve its goals during conflicts.

Food supply is increasingly becoming a national security issue affecting the global population. According to the World Bank 2025 report, the number of people facing acute food insecurity has increased by 20% since 2020, reaching 318 million people worldwide. The World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization identified 16 hunger hotspots where food insecurity is expected to deteriorate between November 2025 and May 2026, including Palestine and Syria.

Weaponised food in warfare contributes to global food insecurity. As seen in the previous cases, creating a man-made food crisis as a tool of coercion causes famine to prevail, while attacking humanitarian food aid operations undermines internal aid strategies out of fear. Additionally, as a country militarises its food supply, it forces compliance with its conditions, whether for the targeted nation or the affected parties.

Besides these repercussions, instrumentalising food as a tool of coercion erodes international norms and risks normalising its use as a recurring strategy in conflict. At the economic level, the destruction of agricultural infrastructure or key export hubs (land, maritime) disturbs local food availability, inflicts economic losses on the targeted nation, and contributes to the surge in global food prices.

There is little doubt that the weaponisation of food has global repercussions; however, the Global South bears the most impact. This stems from several reasons, most notably high dependency on food imports, which creates economic vulnerabilities, particularly within a global food system largely shaped by the Western model. Moreover, many of these regions are already burdened by armed conflicts and governance weaknesses, which undermine food autonomy and leave them highly vulnerable to external manipulation of food supplies.

The most striking problem lies in the enforcement of the Western model in the Global South’s food systems. This dynamic is problematic, as it carries imperialistic tendencies, which makes these countries unnecessarily dependent on Northern-grown products. Furthermore, the Western model of food production is incompatible with the social, economic, and geographical dynamics of the Global South. Hence, these countries are dependent on a trading system they do not control, which makes them acutely vulnerable to rapid price increases and debt flows and destabilises their food security plans.

Within this model, local farmers are treated as recipients rather than agencies with the capacity to make decisions. Capitalism and profit-driven food systems concentrate the decisions in the hands of corporate stakeholders, donors, and trade negotiators. Hence, these countries become vulnerable to global shocks, inequalities, and supply chain manipulation.

Accordingly, addressing the deep-rooted structural problems of food systems in the Global South is an urgent priority to prevent these countries from becoming even more vulnerable to food insecurity in the future.

The way forward requires a multi-layered pathway strategy for the Global South to mitigate food insecurity. A primary step involves reallocating the government’s budget toward nutrition and social protection programmes. Governments could expand social assistance to small-scale farmers, reduce taxes on agricultural projects, and subsidise fertilisers. Beyond fiscal measures, Global South countries must work to decentralise food systems and build food resilience strategies outside Western models.

The first step should be prioritising the South–South food trade frameworks to reduce reliance on Western models and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Such rules must be equitable within and between countries; protect the spatial and financial realities of the countries, improve small-scale food producers (farmers, herders, and artisanal fishermen), and ensure the application of food standards. This approach creates an opportunity for countries to protect domestic producers and build a reserve food system.

As part of South-South cooperation mechanisms, countries could develop more regional strategic food reserves by increasing programs like the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (APTERR) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Regional Food Security Reserve. This aims to buffer against supply shocks and export barriers imposed by Western trade agreements. Also, countries can co-produce fertiliser from domestic raw materials, reducing the costs of importing fertiliser from Western suppliers and mitigating market monopolisation.

Lastly, taking a new direction and simulating successful models is a strong alternative. China has introduced an urban vertical growth model as a strategy to prevent urban expansion on croplands based on its local realities. This approach is appropriate in the current conditions, where pre-emptive measures are required to come from within the country itself to allow for selective application that matches the specific conditions and challenges of each environment.

Unlike China, the Global South countries struggle with weak governance and an increase in informal land expansion. So, governments could partner with local municipalities to ensure the application of legally binding agricultural buffer zones to limit corruption spill-overs as much as possible. In these lower-income countries, vertical growth must be centred around transportation lines to be more feasible for workers. Considering financial constraints, the building will most probably be restricted to a smaller number of floors compared to China’s skyscrapers.

In sum, as international law is being widely undermined, more frequent and extensive use of food supply as a tool of coercion is more likely to intensify. In this case, pre-emptive measures are considered the most optimal direction to curb the increasing risk of food insecurity and get closer to achieving food autonomy.

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