Meanwhile, top Russian insider Victor Bout has raised the alarm that widespread conflicts are already disrupting the world economy, setting the stage for mass food shortages. Bout warned that populations could face starvation by fall or winter, compounding the risks of what Jones described as a premeditated catastrophe.
The wars reshaping today's globalist framework, from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, are not just political and military crises. They are food crises - the kind that leave people to starve and die - and the evidence suggests the world's agricultural systems are far more fragile, and far more exposed to distant conflict, than most consumers realize. In developed nations, expensive energy and groceries are the only thing holding back famine - for now.
Key points:
- More than 295 million people across 53 countries and territories faced acute hunger in 2024, an increase of nearly 14 million over 2023.
- Conflict, economic shocks, climate extremes, and displacement are the primary drivers of rising global hunger.
- The war in Ukraine disrupted global wheat, maize, sunflower oil, and fertilizer exports, exposing how dependent the world is on a handful of suppliers.
- Tensions around the Strait of Hormuz threaten oil, gas, and fertilizer supplies critical to modern farming.
- FAO officials warn that even short delays in fertilizer delivery can permanently reduce harvests, since crop calendars cannot be paused.
- Rising energy costs, not just crop shortages, are driving up food prices worldwide.
- African nations face disproportionate risk due to smaller shipment sizes and higher transport costs.
- Experts call for regenerative agriculture, diversified crops, and reduced dependence on fragile global supply chains, but it might be too little, too late.
The Global Report on Food Crises found that more than 295 million people across 53 countries and territories faced acute hunger in 2024, a jump of nearly 14 million compared with the year before. The World Food Program points to conflict, economic instability, climate extremes, and mass displacement as the driving forces, and the countries already struggling with poverty and weak economies are absorbing the worst of it.
Ukraine's war offered a preview of just how interconnected, and how brittle, the global food system really is. Ukraine has long ranked among the world's top exporters of wheat, maize, and sunflower oil, while Russia supplies much of the world's fertilizer and agricultural inputs.
When Black Sea trade routes were disrupted, food and fertilizer prices spiked far beyond the region, hitting farmers and grocery shoppers who had never heard of the ports in question. Markets have since stabilized to a degree, with inflation becoming commonplace, but the underlying vulnerability, a handful of countries controlling staple food and input supplies, remains unresolved.
A similar warning is now coming out of the Middle East, where instability around the Strait of Hormuz threatens the flow of oil, natural gas, and fertilizer. Since modern agriculture runs on fuel and synthetic fertilizer, any prolonged disruption there ripples straight into farm output.
Speaking at a ministerial meeting on food security and fertilizer access, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu framed the stakes plainly. "This is not only a geopolitical crisis, but also a disruption at the core of the global agrifood system," he said, adding that agriculture follows a rigid biological calendar. "Agriculture operates on a crop calendar that cannot be postponed. Fertilizers must be applied at specific moments in the crop cycle. If they do not arrive on time, yields are reduced, regardless of what happens later." According to Dongyu, delays of just a few weeks could tighten food supplies through 2026 and 2027, driving prices higher across import-dependent regions in Africa and Asia.
