Climate change, conflict, and trade tensions are putting pressure on the global food system. New research suggests the biggest risk is not food shortages, but whether societies can peacefully adapt to change.
https://p.dw.com/p/5Kw3rEl Nino-driven drought has left rice fields in West Java, Indonesia, cracked and dryImage: Donal Husni/NurPhoto/picture allianceAdvertisementThe world's food system is under growing stress, and new research is pointing to areas where this could lead to conflict.
Severe droughts and extreme weather are damaging harvests in many regions. A developing El Niño event is even threatening to worsen food shortages for millions of people next year. At the same time, wars and geopolitical tensions are disrupting supply chains that keep food and farm supplies moving.
The war in Ukraine has repeatedly shaken grain markets, while the Iran war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz has driven up fuel and fertilizer prices, increasing costs for farmers everywhere.
Experts have long warned that rising food insecurity could fuel instability. When people can no longer feed their families, they argue over land, water, and other resources — or they move. In fragile countries, these pressures can contribute to social unrest and even armed conflict.
Now, new research has suggested where some of these risks are greatest. The Climate-Driven Agricultural Decline Index (CADI), developed by Hannes Mueller and his colleagues, maps how climate change is reshaping agricultural productivity around the world. "The heaviest losses are in the tropical regions," said Mueller, a researcher at the Institute for Economic Analysis and the Barcelona School of Economics.
Climate change is already reducing food production in many parts of the world. Hundreds of millions of people live in areas where harvests are smaller than 30 years ago. Mueller mentioned Cambodia, Bangladesh, Burundi, Nigeria, Paraguayand El Salvador as countries where agricultural losses are already being felt.
"Northern Africa is another region we should pay much more attention to. If you look at the map, it just looks terrible. It really looks horrible," he said.
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And climate change is only one part of the story. Wars, trade disruptions, export bans, and rising fertilizer costs can magnify food insecurity.
Within the next 25 years, nearly half of the world's people could be living in areas where farms are producing less food.
These pressures can undermine governments, help causemigration, and make it easier for armed groups to recruit fighters. In societies that are already unstable, such factors can push them toward crisis.
Yet CADI's research points to a surprising reality: Gains in agricultural productivity also appear to increase the risk of violence. Mueller said the key issue is not just scarcity, but change. The climate crisis and other shocks do not simply make some regions poorer. They also create new opportunities, changing the value of land and resources.
In some places, land that had been marginal becomes more productive and more valuable. And that attracts investors and produces competition for ownership and access.
So countries that appear to benefit overall may face new tensions. Sudan, for example, is projected to produce more food as the climate changes. But while some areas could become more productive, others may suffer losses, creating new winners and losers within the country and increasing the risk of conflict.
This looming instability, Mueller said, also applies to areas where the change in productivity hasn't even happened yet. "If we know that your land is going to become more productive, maybe I want to grab it from you today. That is exactly where negotiations break down and where we will have violence," he said.
Even in stable, wealthy regions, the climate crisis is creating future problems. It may seem trivial, but the change in grape-growing options in Europe is affecting local farmers. Major producers of sparkling wine have started to buy up land in mountainous regions.
"It is not productive yet, but they already know where future grape harvests will be," Mueller said. "Big agricultural companies are buying land. This is happening all over the world. Locals are displaced because large producers come in, land prices rise, and you start having fights about something that is still 20 or 30 years in the future."
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One of the CADI team's most striking findings is that agricultural change is more likely to lead to conflict in non-democracies. When climate shocks, food insecurity, and competition over resources hit democracies, they tend to have institutions that force competing interests to negotiate rather than fight.
"Democracies may look annoying and cumbersome. Nothing moves as fast as people want. But this is a great thing because it makes people talk to each other," Mueller said. "There is a platform for negotiation. There are institutions that help people negotiate. That process of constantly finding solutions is at the heart of what prevents conflict."
"We do not pay enough attention to the threats to the source of our livelihoods," said Abdullah Fahimi of the think tank German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). "These threats can trigger major crises and displace millions and millions of people. The regions we should watch most closely are South Asia and the Sahel, where climate vulnerability and rapid population growth mean the number of people affected could rise dramatically."
Fahimi said South Asia stands out because it depends on both vulnerable water supplies and global food markets. Food prices have already risen significantly over the past decades. "South Asia, with a population of around 2 billion, is highly dependent on imports," he added. Those imports include wheat, maize, and palm oil from countries including Russia, Ukraine, Canada, and Malaysia.
At the same time, local agriculture is increasingly threatened by heat waves, floods, declining land productivity, and saltwater intrusion from rising sea levels.
As well as the immediate human toll, events such as the devastating floods that struck Nepal in August 2026 offer a glimpse of the long-term challenges that could become more common in the future. "The Himalayas and the Hindu Kush mountain ranges supply most of the water for agriculture and drinking water in the region," Fahimi said. "Because of climate change, the glaciers and snow are melting very fast."
In the short term, meltwater could increase water availability. But later in the century, he warned, the region could face "a huge humanitarian crisis that could affect around 2 billion people."
As food insecurity deepens, the social and political consequences can multiply. "When resource scarcities or the impacts of climate change force people to look for other livelihood opportunities, sometimes they end up being hired by terrorist groups," said Fahimi, who cited examples from Nigeria and Afghanistan.
In other cases, public frustration is directed at governments if they fail to mitigate the effects on people's livelihoods. Their legitimacy is questioned, and this can escalate into violent conflict.
That echoes Mueller's broader conclusion. Climate change, wars, and trade disruptions do not automatically lead to conflict. But climate adaptation cannot just be about growing different crops or using new technologies. People and societies also need to adapt to changes in who has access to land, water and jobs.
The key question is whether societies have institutions that can manage these changes. Where governments, courts, and local institutions can help communities negotiate new realities, shocks may be absorbed. Where those institutions are weak, the pressure on food systems may become a pressure on peace itself.
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