What other forces have an impact on food security?

December 7, 2025 •

4 min read

According to the UN, over 735 million people faced hunger in 2022, underscoring that food security is a multifaceted challenge extending far beyond agriculture and climate alone. While weather patterns and crop yields are crucial, numerous systemic factors also wield significant influence over a community's ability to consistently access safe, nutritious food.

Quick Summary

This article examines the multifaceted drivers of food insecurity, focusing on economic instability, political conflicts, supply chain disruptions, population growth, and resource management. It explains how these factors interact to threaten the availability, access, and stability of food for vulnerable populations worldwide. Addressing these issues requires a holistic approach that moves beyond agricultural concerns.

Key Points

Economic Instability: Income inequality, unemployment, and high food prices limit access to nutritious food, disproportionately affecting low-income households.
Political Conflict: Wars and political instability disrupt food production and supply chains, displace populations, and can lead to the weaponization of food.
Global Pandemics: Health crises like COVID-19 cause widespread supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and income loss, exacerbating food insecurity globally.
Resource Management: Poor land management, water scarcity, and significant food loss and waste undermine the sustainability and resilience of food systems.
Systemic Nature: Food security is impacted by a complex interplay of socioeconomic, political, and environmental issues, requiring integrated, holistic solutions.

Economic Factors and Their Far-Reaching Effects

Economic forces are powerful determinants of food security, affecting both an individual's ability to purchase food and a nation's capacity to maintain a stable food supply. Poverty and high unemployment directly limit economic access to food, forcing households to prioritize other expenses over nutrition. In countries with low average incomes, families with enough money to prevent chronic undernourishment may still lack the funds for an active, healthy life.

Inflation and Prices: High food price inflation can have a devastating effect, particularly for urban poor and import-dependent countries. Rapid price spikes can trigger food riots and social unrest, as seen in multiple countries during the 2007–2008 and 2022–2023 food crises.
Income Volatility: Unstable incomes, whether from low-wage jobs, unemployment, or seasonal work, prevent households from securing a consistent food supply. This instability can turn temporary shortages into chronic food insecurity.
External Shocks: A country's reliance on imports can create vulnerabilities to external economic shocks, such as fluctuating global commodity prices, supply chain disruptions, or the depletion of foreign reserves.
Inequality: Significant income and asset inequality exacerbates food insecurity, as the poorest segments of the population are most vulnerable to market shifts and economic downturns.

The Disruptive Power of Conflict and Political Instability

Armed conflicts and political instability are consistently cited as major drivers of food insecurity, especially in fragile states where they can create a vicious cycle of hunger and instability.

Destruction of Infrastructure: War and conflict destroy essential infrastructure, including roads, markets, storage facilities, and agricultural land, making food production and distribution impossible.
Displacement of Populations: Conflicts force large-scale displacement, turning self-reliant rural farmers into dependent urban consumers who require humanitarian assistance.
Weaponization of Food: In some cases, food and starvation are used as weapons of war, deliberately creating food shortages to exert political pressure.
Governance Failure: Poor governance, corruption, and the inability to provide basic services erode public trust and can precipitate conflict, with food insecurity often acting as the final trigger for unrest.

Pandemics and Health Crises

Global health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed the fragility of food systems, affecting food security on a global scale.

Supply Chain Bottlenecks: Pandemic-related lockdowns, travel restrictions, and labor shortages caused significant disruptions to food supply chains, affecting everything from production and processing to logistics and distribution.
Reduced Purchasing Power: Widespread job losses and reduced income during pandemics limit people's purchasing power, with low-income households being the most affected.
Shifts in Demand: The closure of food service establishments like restaurants and school meal programs forces rapid shifts in demand, leading to food waste at the producer level and shortages for consumers.

Environmental and Resource Management

Environmental degradation and inefficient resource management, often exacerbated by climate change, directly impact food production capacity.

Land Degradation: Over-farming, deforestation, and unsustainable agricultural practices lead to soil erosion and degradation, reducing agricultural yields over the long term.
Water Scarcity: Agriculture is the world's largest consumer of freshwater. Competing demands from urbanization, pollution, and climate change create water scarcity, severely affecting agricultural output. In many arid regions, water scarcity is a primary driver of food insecurity.
Food Loss and Waste: A significant portion of food is lost or wasted at various stages, from production and transport to retail and household consumption. Reducing this waste is critical for improving food availability, especially with a growing global population.

Comparative Analysis of Food Security Drivers


Driver	Immediate Impact	Long-Term Impact	Affected Dimensions of Food Security	Key Vulnerabilities
Economic Instability	Increased food prices, reduced purchasing power, panic buying.	Cycle of poverty and hunger, depletion of national reserves, social unrest.	Access, Stability, Availability.	Low-income households, import-dependent nations.
Political Conflict	Destruction of crops and infrastructure, market closures, mass displacement.	Loss of human capital, long-term economic damage, protracted crises.	Availability, Access, Stability.	Rural populations, fragile states, humanitarian aid dependency.
Pandemics/Health Crises	Supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, economic recession.	Weakened food systems, shifts to less nutritious diets, increased health risks.	Availability, Access, Utilization, Stability.	Food system workers, low-income households, those with pre-existing conditions.
Resource Mismanagement	Reduced crop yields, higher input costs, environmental degradation.	Depletion of natural resources (soil, water), reduced biodiversity, unsustainable food systems.	Availability, Sustainability.	Communities dependent on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources.

The Critical Role of Systemic Change

Addressing food security requires moving beyond a narrow focus on agricultural productivity. Systemic issues like poverty and inequality must be tackled head-on, requiring coordinated efforts at local, national, and global levels. Investments in resilient agricultural systems, improved supply chain infrastructure, and effective social protection programs are essential for mitigating food insecurity risks. Stronger international collaboration is necessary to manage trade, provide aid in crises, and address geopolitical tensions that threaten food supplies. Ultimately, a sustainable, equitable food system is built on a foundation of economic and political stability, ensuring reliable access to nutritious food for everyone, not just those with the means to afford it. The FAO's focus on transforming food systems through policy integration and investment offers a blueprint for creating a more resilient future for food.

Conclusion

While climate change presents a formidable threat, a host of interconnected factors profoundly impact food security. Economic instability, political conflict, global health crises, and environmental mismanagement interact in complex ways, creating deep-seated vulnerabilities within global food systems. Acknowledging these drivers and their systemic nature is the first step toward building a more resilient and equitable food system. Long-term solutions demand not only agricultural innovation but also robust governance, economic stability, and international cooperation to create a world where food security is a reality for all.

Optional Outbound Link

For further information, the World Bank's portal on Food Security offers extensive data, news, and solutions related to global food insecurity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Poverty is a leading driver of food insecurity, as low and unstable incomes directly limit a person's ability to purchase or access enough safe and nutritious food. Economic downturns and high food prices disproportionately impact the poor, making them more vulnerable to hunger.

Political instability and conflict severely disrupt food supplies by destroying agricultural land and infrastructure, interrupting supply chains, and causing mass displacement of populations, which reduces the local food production capacity.

Yes, global health pandemics like COVID-19 significantly impact food security through multiple channels, including disrupting food supply chains, causing job losses that limit purchasing power, and altering consumer behavior, leading to increased food waste.

Food waste has a direct impact on food security by reducing the overall availability of food, especially for vulnerable populations. Reducing waste across the supply chain, from farms to consumers, is a crucial step toward creating a more sustainable and food-secure world.

International trade is crucial for global food security, as it allows countries to access food that is not produced locally. However, heavy reliance on imports can also make a nation vulnerable to global price volatility, trade restrictions, and supply chain disruptions.

Urbanization affects food security by increasing reliance on external food sources and creating urban-rural imbalances. While cities can provide market incentives for agricultural production, rapid expansion can also strain resources, raise food costs, and exacerbate inequities.

Water scarcity and mismanagement are among the most critical resource issues affecting food security, as agriculture depends heavily on freshwater resources. Competition over scarce water and changing precipitation patterns directly impact crop yields and food production.