The Food Foundation Podcast Pod Bites: How global conflicts impact food prices
Mar 13, 2026
Professor Aled Jones, director of the Global Sustainability Institute and food-system resilience researcher. He maps how global conflicts travel through supply chains to hit availability and prices. He explains scenario work with insurers, links past price spikes to social unrest, and outlines threats from fertiliser, energy and geopolitical shocks. He also sketches resilience solutions from agroecology to cyber protections.
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Lloyd's Scenario Showed 10% Production Loss Consequences
- The GSI used expert elicitation with Lloyd's of London to map how conflicts affect food systems.
- They modelled scenarios showing how losing up to 10% of global food production in a year would cascade through markets and governments.
Production Shocks Can Trigger Social Unrest
- Global production shocks cascade into price spikes and social unrest.
- A 2007–08 wheat price surge (~500%) triggered protests, livelihood loss, and fed into the Arab Spring.
Many Nonproduction Risks Threaten Food Supply
- Food system shocks come from many non-production sources beyond weather and disease.
- Categories include cyber attacks, rare earth shortages, AI/transport failures, power outages, financial collapses, info wars, and labour crises.