Climate change, trade, and global food security

The report identifies critical transboundary climate risks in global agricultural trade, noting that a few major exporters like the US, Brazil, and China disproportionately transmit risk to dependent importers. It argues that traditional risk management, such as diversification, is insufficient against systemic climate shifts and calls for multilateral cooperation and system-level adaptation finance.

• Climate change is projected to cause significant long-term yield reductions in five of the six assessed commodities: sugar cane (-58.5%), Arabica coffee (-45.2%), maize (-27.0%), Robusta coffee (-23.5%), and soy (-7.2%), while wheat is projected to increase by 13.9%.
• Transboundary climate risks are disproportionately concentrated in a small number of major exporting countries. For maize, the primary risk exporters are Brazil, China, and the US; for rice, they are Thailand and the US; and for wheat, the US is the dominant source of risk.
• The maize market is particularly unstable, with climate risks outweighing opportunities by a ratio of 43:1. In the coffee market, the imbalance is even more extreme, with very few countries expected to see production increases.
• Traditional supply chain risk management strategies, such as diversifying suppliers or substituting sources, are likely to be ineffective because climate change creates systemic, simultaneous risks across multiple breadbasket regions.
• Certain regions exhibit high dependency on risky imports; for example, Latin America and the Caribbean are highly dependent on the US for maize, soy, and wheat, while Kenya and Bolivia face high risks from within their own regions.
• The report warns that awareness of these risks could lead to a retreat from global integration toward protectionism and the securitization of food supplies, which would likely destabilize markets and harm the most vulnerable countries.
• Effective adaptation requires a shift from national-level planning to a cooperative multilateral approach, utilizing frameworks like the Paris Agreement's Global Goal on Adaptation to address the international dimensions of climate risk.
• The authors propose a new model for climate finance that targets systemic resilience rather than individual countries, such as a 'World Rice Market Climate Stabilization Mechanism' to fund open-access crop varieties and infrastructure in key exporting regions.
• The assessment's results are likely conservative because the methodology focuses on long-term yield trends and excludes the impacts of extreme weather events and risks to physical infrastructure like ports and storage.

APA

Adams, K. M., Benzie, M., Croft, S., & Sadowski, S. (2021). Climate change, trade, and global food security. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/climate-trade-global-food-security-sei-report.pdf

Chicago

Adams, Kevin M., Magnus Benzie, Simon Croft, and Sebastian Sadowski. Climate change, trade, and global food security. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2021. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/climate-trade-global-food-security-sei-report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Adams |first1=Kevin M. |last2=Benzie |first2=Magnus |last3=Croft |first3=Simon |last4=Sadowski |first4=Sebastian |title=Climate change, trade, and global food security |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=September 2021 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/climate-trade-global-food-security-sei-report.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{adams2021climate, author = {Adams, Kevin M. and Benzie, Magnus and Croft, Simon and Sadowski, Sebastian}, title = {{Climate change, trade, and global food security}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2021}, month = sep, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/climate-trade-global-food-security-sei-report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }