At first glance, the world’s food markets appear remarkably calm. The latest Food Outlook from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that global cereal production will remain historically high in 2026–27, even if it slips from recent record levels. Supplies of wheat, rice, and coarse grains continue to be supported by ample stockpiles, and the acute shortages many feared after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have not hardened into a permanent feature of the global economy.

Yet beneath that reassuring headline lies a more troubling reality. The FAO’s assessment is less a celebration of abundance than a warning about vulnerability. On paper, the food system remains well supplied. In practice, however, it is becoming increasingly exposed to disruption. The possible return of El Niño, volatility in energy and fertilizer markets, rising trade tensions, conflict in the Middle East, and broader economic uncertainty are all pressing against the same system at the same time.

“Agrifood systems appear robust at a production level, but risks are growing, and many of them have the potential to have rapid and adverse effects for global supply and access,” FAO Chief Economist Máximo Torero said in the organization’s latest market assessment. “We need to double down on resilience by keeping trade flows open and supply chains functioning, while preparing for local weather shocks.”

That observation goes to the heart of the issue. The world may not be facing a shortage of food today, but the infrastructure, inputs, and economic conditions that allow food to be grown, transported, and purchased are becoming more fragile. The system still works. The question is how many shocks it can absorb before it does not.

The Fertilizer Warning

One of the clearest signs of that fragility can be found in fertilizer markets.

According to the FAO Food Outlook, global fertilizer trade volumes fell by 20-25 percent from January through April compared with the same period a year earlier. Although prices have eased somewhat, the FAO continues to express concern about the 2026–27 agricultural season, particularly because fertilizer purchases in Europe and North America have slowed for key nitrogen and phosphate products.

That matters because fertilizer is not a peripheral component of modern agriculture. It is one of its foundations. Nitrogen fertilizers rely heavily on natural gas, while phosphate fertilizers depend on a range of industrial inputs, including sulfur. As a result, disruptions in energy markets tend to reverberate quickly through fertilizer production and distribution.

The relationship is straightforward. When energy prices rise, fertilizer costs often rise with them. When shipping routes become unreliable, deliveries slow, and costs increase. When farmers respond by reducing fertilizer use, crop yields can suffer. What begins as a disruption in one market can gradually spread through the entire food chain.

The Strait of Hormuz now sits at the center of those concerns. Earlier this year, Torero warned that any prolonged disruption to the waterway would represent “not only an energy shock” but a “systematic shock affecting agrifood systems globally,” according to an FAO briefing. The organization estimates that the route normally carries around 20 million barrels of oil each day, roughly one-fifth of global liquefied natural gas supplies, and as much as 30 percent of internationally traded fertilizers.

That creates a direct connection between instability in the Middle East and food prices thousands of miles away. A prolonged interruption would do more than increase fuel and transportation costs. It could influence planting decisions, reduce fertilizer application rates, and ultimately affect future harvests. The consequences would not necessarily be immediate, which is precisely what makes them easy to overlook. Shocks to fertilizer markets today often emerge months later as pressure on food prices.

El Niño Arrives at the Wrong Time

Climate risk forms a second layer of vulnerability.

Recognizing those dangers, the FAO and the World Food Programme have launched their first joint anticipatory action appeal for El Niño, seeking $202 million to protect 8.8 million people across 22 high-risk countries.

El Niño is a recurring climate phenomenon associated with warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Its effects differ across regions, but it is frequently linked to droughts, floods, and severe storms. For agriculture, the timing of those events can be decisive. A drought during planting season or a flood shortly before harvest can erase an entire year’s worth of work and income.

The two UN agencies warn that strong El Niño conditions during the second half of 2026 could heighten risks across parts of Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Their appeal focuses on countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, and Venezuela.

The challenge extends beyond the weather itself. Many of these countries are already coping with conflict, displacement, weak consumer purchasing power, economic instability, or repeated climate-related disasters. The WFP notes that millions of people are already experiencing acute food insecurity driven by a combination of conflict, economic pressures, displacement, and weather shocks. In that context, El Niño is less likely to create entirely new crises than to deepen and accelerate existing ones.

“Experience consistently shows that early action is more effective and less costly than responding after a crisis has escalated,” FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol said in the joint announcement.

Carl Skau, the WFP’s acting executive director, expressed the concern in starker terms: “We cannot afford the fallout of another food crisis.”

Food Inflation Has Changed Shape

The FAO also highlights a less visible but equally important source of pressure: the growing cost of food imports.

The global food import bill is now estimated to have reached a record $2.22 trillion in 2025, an increase of 7.9 percent from the previous year. What makes that figure notable is that it was achieved despite lower costs for cereals, sugar, and oilseeds. Instead, much of the increase came from higher-value products such as coffee, cocoa, spices, animal products, fish, fruits, and vegetables.

For wealthier countries, these increases are primarily an inflation challenge. For poorer countries, they can become something more serious. Rising import costs can strain foreign currency reserves, worsen balance-of-payments pressures, and reduce access to essential food supplies. Even when food is available on global markets, affordability can become a barrier.

That distinction is critical. Food security is not simply about whether food exists. It is also about whether governments, businesses, and households can obtain it at sustainable prices.

As a result, the current situation is uncomfortable precisely because it does not revolve around a single catastrophic shock. Instead, it involves several medium-sized pressures that can reinforce one another. An El Niño-driven drought can reduce domestic agricultural output. A fertilizer shortage can lower yields. Conflict can increase shipping and energy costs. Currency depreciation can make imports more expensive. Governments already constrained by debt or limited fiscal capacity may then struggle to shield consumers from the resulting price increases.

Individually, none of these challenges are new.

Collectively, however, they create a more dangerous environment.

What distinguishes the present moment is not the existence of risk but the fact that so many risks are occurring simultaneously.

A Fragile Calm

The broader lesson of the FAO’s latest outlook is not that a global food crisis is inevitable. Rather, it is that stability itself has become increasingly conditional.

Food markets remain relatively well supplied because harvests are still strong, stockpiles remain adequate, and international trade continues to function. Yet each of those pillars depends on assumptions that are becoming more difficult to take for granted: open shipping lanes, affordable energy, reliable fertilizer supplies, predictable weather patterns, and functioning humanitarian financing.

That is why the global food system can appear healthy and vulnerable at the same time. The danger lies not in an immediate collapse but in a gradual tightening of the conditions that allow farmers to plant, traders to ship, governments to import, and families to buy food.

In that sense, the FAO’s warning is ultimately about exposure. The world still has enough food. What it increasingly lacks is confidence that the systems responsible for moving that food across borders and into households will remain insulated from geopolitical conflict, climate disruption, economic volatility, and strategic chokepoints. The food itself may be abundant. The mechanisms that sustain that abundance are becoming harder to take for granted.