Episode 328: Food Security and Systemic Resilience: National Preparedness in Globally Integrated Food Systems with Tim Lang

In this episode of The International Risk Podcast, Dominic Bowen speaks with Professor Tim Lang about food security as a systemic risk embedded within highly interdependent global supply, trade, and governance networks. The conversation explores how deeply integrated supply chains, energy dependency, trade regimes, and regulation shape national food resilience in an era of climate volatility and geopolitical disruption.

Find out more about how efficiency-driven “just-in-time” models prioritised cost reduction over redundancy, leaving food systems exposed to cascading shocks. The discussion explores how export controls, regulatory divergence, and concentrated supply chains redistribute risk rather than contain it, and why national governments remain accountable for outcomes they no longer fully control.

The episode also examines the tension between sovereignty and shared governance, particularly within the EU, and considers whether existing risk assessment tools are calibrated for systemic disruption rather than isolated supply failures.

Finally, the conversation turns to civil preparedness and strategic exposure: whether food is treated as critical infrastructure, how geopolitical competition is reshaping access to staples and inputs, and which indicators policymakers should monitor as climate stress and political fragmentation intensify pressures on global food governance.

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