Food Security as a Geopolitical Weapon

Food has functioned as an instrument of geopolitical power for as long as states have controlled surplus grain, but the scale of modern agricultural trade has made a handful of major exporters disproportionately consequential to global food security. Russia and Ukraine together accounted for roughly 28 percent of global wheat exports and Ukraine alone for a large share of world sunflower oil exports before 2022, according to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization figures, making both countries pivotal suppliers to food-import-dependent regions of the Middle East and North Africa, including Egypt, the world's largest wheat importer. Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, combined with a subsequent Russian naval blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports, cut off a substantial share of these exports almost overnight, contributing to a sharp global spike in wheat and cooking oil prices through 2022 that the World Bank and the FAO both linked to increased food insecurity, particularly in already fragile states across the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.