Biofuels

The international system faces complex geostrategic pressures that place global supply chains under unprecedented strain. Escalating military tensions, particularly disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, are putting pressure on oil and liquefied natural gas flows. In 2025, this passage carried around a quarter of seaborne oil trade and 19% of global trade in liquefied natural gas. These developments coincide with a shift in the Russia–Ukraine conflict towards attacks on energy infrastructure, alongside tighter restrictions on Black Sea shipping and disruptions to key export routes for strategically important grains. This convergence leaves the world caught between declining oil supplies and restricted access to part of the available food supply, complicating procurement and threatening the foundations of national security.   Faced with these shortages and rising shipping costs, some major powers and emerging economies are expanding biofuel production as an instrument of national policy to ease the energy crisis, alongside pursuing environmental objectives and supporting agricultural production. Agricultural producer countries are consequently choosing to redirect part of their strategic crop output, including maize, sugar cane and palm oil, towards biofuel plants to meet transport needs. This analysis advances the hypothesis that expanding biofuels derived from food crops may heighten the vulnerability of importing countries when demand growth outstrips the capacity of production and stocks to accommodate it, while trade policies restrict exportable supplies. The scale of this effect depends on the feedstocks used, the volume diverted and the responsiveness of production. It does not apply to the same extent to fuels produced from agricultural residues or used oils.   Import-dependent countries, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, may bear the cost of these pressures through diminished food security and domestic stability. An inability to secure food can, in this context, undermine social stability and signal the risk of political crises whose severity varies according to institutional effectiveness and the capacity to protect the most vulnerable groups. This complex situation poses an urgent question: how far can importing countries withstand the convergence of energy and food policies, and what protective mechanisms can safeguard their national security as competition intensifies between the use of crops for food and for fuel?