From the Middle East Crisis to the Next Food Shock: Fertiliser, Energy, and Global Food Security

Food crises are not anomalies — they are recurring and predictable. COVID-19, Ukraine, the Middle East conflict, and now El Niño forming on the horizon: each shock travels the same transmission channels, driving up input costs, and hitting small-scale farmers first and hardest. These farmers produce a third of the world's food, including up to 70% of the food in Africa, and they operate with thin margins. When input costs spike, production falls, and what begins as a price crisis quickly becomes a hunger crisis, then a stability crisis. The question is no longer whether the next shock is coming. It is whether the world will respond after it hits or invest before it does. 100% of IFAD investments are directed toward the poorest and most marginalized people. In 2024, IFAD’s US$7bln ongoing portfolio reached approximately 95 people, with the objective of increasing productivity and incomes, access markets, employment, and building resilience to shocks. IFAD President Alvaro Lario makes the case to increase long-term investment in food system transformation and resilience at the "first mile" — the rural communities where food is produced. He also addresses the EU's role, and how Ireland's forthcoming EU Presidency can help turn ambition into delivery. Alvaro Lario is President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). IFAD was established in the 1970s in response to a global food crisis. It is the world’s fund for transforming agriculture, rural economies, and food systems. Lario is a seasoned international development finance leader, he has more than 20 years of experience across academia, private sector asset management, the World Bank Group and the United Nations, including as Associate Vice-President of Financial Operations at IFAD.