Food security has become a bit of an issue.

Between raising global tension, open conflict in Europe, spiking commodity prices, supply chain disruptions, and the lingering affects of COVID.

Not to mention skyrocketing global inflation, cost of living crisis, looming recession and last but not least a crushing climate catastrophe, the pressure on our institutions has never been greater. And we are feeling it in our food systems.

The silver lining is, that with all these issues raging around us, we have an opportunity to affect real change.

When we look at the food system, the first thing we need to understand is that it is vast, complex, and interconnected.

Much like the butterfly effect, seemingly unconnected events can cascade to have broad, far reaching impact.

A perfect example of this is the winter of 2022.

It was late 2022 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not going well. A comprehensive global embargo on all Russian exports had bitten, cutting of 25% of the global nitrogen fertiliser supply (Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) reserves are vast in Russia, and LNG is the key feedstock for nitrogen production) as Europe prepared to enter winter without Russian energy, across the west people were expected to heat their homes and run their businesses on stockpiled LNG. As it turns out, it was a record mild winter and natural gas usage was a fraction of what was expected. This meant that fertiliser production was able to go ahead unimpeded. This was great news. Farmers were preparing to deal with continuing spikes in fertiliser price. The additional nitrogen supply brought fertiliser prices down which allowed farmers to buy and use more fertiliser. This increased yields for key crops like wheat, and softened expected high commodity prices. If the winter of 2022 was a cold one, LNG supplies would have been diverted to keep people warm, fertiliser prices would have sky rocketed, reducing crop yields, reducing supply, further increasing the price of food, deepening the already heart-breaking cost of living crisis. The warm northern winter potentially saved hundreds of thousands of lives, directly and indirectly.

Our global food systems are fragile and lately much more volatile. Globalisation over the past 30 years has brought us vast wealth and lifted millions of souls out of poverty, but it has also made us much more reliant on international supply chains for the food we eat every day.

This is what keeps me up at night.

As an Australian, I truly do live in the lucky country. I occupy one of the most food secure corners of the planet and enjoy some of the worlds best fresh produce. This is not the case for much of the planet.

It would not take much for highly populated, urbanised countries, or a desperate, dry, dusty region, to suffer an unimaginably disastrous food shortage resulting in the deaths of millions.

We need to address this issue and adapt our food systems to serve us now and into the future.

Unfortunately there is no silver bullet and there are several ways to skin this cat, but I am working to do what I can to improve access to safe, nutritious food to keep this crazy human experiment going.

In his recent book “Food or War” Australian science communicator Julian Cribb highlighted the very real, and terrifying link between people’s access to adequate food and their propensity for violence.

If we are serious about seeking to deliver world peace, maybe it starts with making sure everyone is fed.