Volatility and hunger shouldn't be allowed to walk hand in hand

Food insecurity is a humanitarian problem, but it is also a symptom of the consequences of war, disrupted trade, blocked aid, weak development and climate shocks. That was the message of the United Nations Security Council's high-level open debate on conflict and food security on Tuesday.

Some 318 million people worldwide face acute hunger, with conflict-affected regions in Africa and the Middle East among the hardest-hit. The question is no longer simply whether the world produces enough food. It is whether food can be grown, moved and delivered to those who need it.

War is often the fastest route from food insecurity to famine. Fighting drives farmers from their land, destroys irrigation and storage facilities, disrupts transport and sends food prices soaring. Look at Gaza. Meanwhile, the Ukraine crisis has affected agricultural production and international flows of grain and fertilizer.

Chinese Ambassador to the UN Fu Cong said at the debate that hunger shouldn't become an instrument of war. International humanitarian law provides the baseline. Agricultural infrastructure should be protected, food aid needs unimpeded access, and the security of humanitarian workers must be guaranteed. Relief cannot function when it becomes hostage to war calculations.

The same logic applies beyond battlefields. Food security depends on logistics. A blockage in a major shipping route can quickly become a problem for farmers thousands of kilometers away, particularly when fertilizer and grain markets are already tight. The international community has a common interest in keeping land and sea corridors open and ensuring that essential commodities continue to move. China's support for a UN initiative to establish a time-bound operational mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz reflects this broader principle.

Artificial barriers, excessive protectionism and the abuse of unilateral sanctions can raise the cost of food and agricultural inputs, with the poorest countries carrying much of the burden. Food security becomes more fragile when commercial flows are subordinated to geopolitical rivalry.

Less-developed countries also need the productive capacity to feed themselves. That means investment in irrigation, farmland, storage, agricultural technology and resilient supply chains. It also means climate finance. Droughts, floods and other extreme weather events are increasingly capable of wiping out harvests and reversing development gains. Developed economies therefore have a particular role to play in providing development assistance and climate finance, helping vulnerable countries build resilience rather than remain permanently dependent on emergency relief.

China offers a notable case of what long-term food-security policy can achieve. The country feeds more than 1.4 billion people with less than 9 percent of the world's arable land and produces more than one-fifth of global grains. Its progress has rested on domestic production, institutional reform, investment in farmland and water conservation, technological innovation and grain reserves. The lesson is less about a single model than about the value of building productive capacity before a crisis arrives.

China has also shared its experience to strengthen the resilience of other countries. It has agricultural cooperation with more than 140 countries and regions, promoted more than 1,000 agricultural technologies in developing countries and trained more than 14,000 professionals in hybrid rice. Under the Food and Agriculture Organization's South-South cooperation framework, it has provided substantial funding, experts and projects.

Food security affects every country but the institutions governing food and agriculture do not always give developing economies commensurate representation and influence. The UN, FAO, International Fund for Agricultural Development and World Food Programme can play a stronger coordinating role, while emerging markets and developing countries deserve a greater voice.

There is enough productive capacity in the world to make hunger far less common. What remains scarce is peace, resilience and reliable access. China's Global Development Initiative and Global Governance Initiative, centered on development, multilateralism and more balanced global governance, offer a framework for delivering those prerequisites.

The choice before governments is therefore practical rather than rhetorical: reduce conflicts, keep humanitarian and commercial corridors open, finance climate resilience and build a food-governance system in which developing countries have a meaningful stake. Food should be a foundation of stability. Turning it into another instrument of geopolitical competition only makes a hungry world more dangerous.