BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (PAMACC News) – Climate change is now a threat to major international trade routes, including ports, straits and roads and could disrupt global food supplies and increase food prices, according to a recent study.

The study points out that just under 25 percent of all food eaten in the world including staple crops are traded on international markets.

About 54 of the global trade in soybeans, cereals and fertilizers passes through at least one maritime chokepoint, according to a report, Chokepoints and vulnerabilities in Global Food Trade, released on 27th June by Chatham House, a British think-tank.

The report identifies fourteen chokepoints critical to global food security, eight of which are maritime including the Panama Canal, Suez Canal, and the Turkish Straits. Three inland chokepoints include the US inland waterways and Brazil’s road network; and three coastal chokepoints include the Black Sea ports and US Gulf Coast ports on which all traded goods pass through.

Trade and chokepoints are vulnerable to the risk of weather and climate, political and institutional; and conflict and security, making it critical for governments to invest in "climate-resilient" infrastructure as well as taking other precautionary measures such as diversifying food production and stocks.

Responses taken by governments to alleviate the risks often have short term, national interests which can exacerbate the global problem and undermine systemic resilience, the report notes.

“Meanwhile, climate change is going to make things worse by increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, fuelling conflict, and damaging already-weakened infrastructure,” Laura Wellesley, one of the study's authors said in a statement. “We need a new, collaborative approach to mapping and mitigating the growing threat we all face.”  

Global food security depends upon trade in four staple crops – maize, wheat, rice and soybean production of which is concentrated in a handful of exporting ‘breadbasket’ regions.  For example, the US exports 30% of the world’s maize supply, and 29% of its soy; while Brazil is the largest exporter of soy globally (32%) and accounts for 48% of China’s soy imports. In total, nearly 25% of all food for direct human consumption is traded on international markets and this is increasing.

The global cereals trade - which is what the report focuses on - was worth $132bn in 2015. According to the report, climate change is likely to aggravate socioeconomic and political risks.

Extreme weather events and more frequent harvest failures are expected to increase human displacement, indirectly amplifying the risks of inter-group violent conflict and civil war by exacerbating conflict drivers such as poverty, economic shocks and localized resource scarcity.

As coastlines and maritime borders are redrawn by rising sea levels, the risk of territorial disputes may increase, the study found, noting that climate-induced food supply shortages may prompt the more regular imposition of unilateral trade measures. One preliminary analysis found that a global agricultural production shock that would have been defined as a one-in-100-year event in 1951–2010 could become a one-in-30-year occurrence by 2040, increasing the risk of export bans and food price crises.

“The risks are growing as we all trade more with each other and as climate change takes hold,” Wellesley said. “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 such as floods in Brazil and the Southern United States and the export ban on wheat from the Black Sea countries that contributed in part to the Arab Spring, point to the sort of disruptions that can occur when chokepoints are closed, said Wellesley.

African countries, which are also major food importers are impacted by the risk on major trade routes. The African continent annually spends more than $50 billion in food imports. For example, the report says over a third of grain imports for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) – the most food-import dependent region in the world – pass through at least one maritime chokepoint for which there is no alternative route.

Historical links between food insecurity and political/social instability make the region’s extreme exposure to chokepoint risk a particular cause for concern.

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

The report recommended that governments urgently strengthen global rules and cooperation – by limiting export controls, and sharing information; and invest in climate resistant infrastructure.