Highlighting that conflicts present one of the most severe threats to global food security, India has asserted that the United Nations Security Council’s immediate priority must be to take action to mitigate the humanitarian fallout of hostilities.
Addressing a Council open debate titled “Food Under Fire: The Security Council’s Role in Mitigating Global and Local Food Crises” on Tuesday, India’s Permanent Representative P Harish noted, “Today’s conflicts increasingly generate ripple effects far beyond the immediate theatre of hostilities.”
“Disruptions to energy markets, fertiliser supplies, maritime transport, humanitarian logistics and agricultural trade have demonstrated how regional conflicts can threaten food security across the world,” Harish said.
Pointing out that developing nations with high import dependency bear a disproportionate burden of such disruptions, the Indian envoy stated, “The Council’s immediate priority should be to mitigate the humanitarian consequences of conflict. This requires facilitating safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access, supporting de-confliction arrangements.”
He further urged that the Security Council must ensure its measures, including sanctions, “do not inadvertently impede humanitarian assistance or legitimate food and agricultural trade.”
Harish, however, underlined that “building resilient, food-secure societies remains primarily the responsibility of national governments, supported by the UN development system and the Rome-based agencies”, rather than the Security Council.
Highlighting India’s domestic strides in attaining food security through sustained investments, the envoy noted that these efforts have positioned New Delhi as a key contributor to global food stability.
“The National Food Security Act provides a statutory entitlement to subsidised food grains [and] direct benefit transfers to over 110 million farming households under the PM-KISAN [programme] have strengthened the economic resilience of small and marginal producers,” Harish said.
He added that India’s promotion of the International Year of Millets in 2023 galvanised worldwide focus towards climate-resilient and nutrient-dense crops as a sustainable model for diversified food security.
“These efforts, underpinned by digital public infrastructure and climate-adaptive agricultural practices, have enabled India to remain both food-secure and a net contributor to global food supply,” he remarked.
While speaking broadly on the risks posed to food security by disruptions across commercial shipping lanes and maritime trade routes, Harish did not explicitly name specific conflict zones.
In contrast, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres directly cited three major geopolitical flashpoints jeopardising global food supplies, pointing to the Black Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Red Sea.
“The war in Ukraine is affecting grain and energy exports in the Black Sea, both from Ukraine and Russia,” Guterres stated.
The UN chief observed that closures and restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime passage handling a fifth of global oil supplies and a third of world fertiliser trade, “have driven up commodity prices, and made availability plummet.”
“Attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea are further threatening supply chains for food and other commodities”, Guterres added.
To address the bottleneck, Guterres revealed that the UN has put forward practical frameworks to facilitate the passage of fertilisers and foodgrains through a protected corridor in Hormuz.
“This time-bound confidence-building effort would focus initially on fertilisers and related raw materials, but with the ability to be extended to other products”, he said.
Building on initial proposals framed in March, Guterres announced on Monday that a task force spearheaded by the Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has formulated an operational structure to register and verify vessels transporting fertiliser and associated products to ease transit.
“What is needed now is the cooperation and political will of the parties”, Guterres said, urging, “I urge all concerned to engage seriously and constructively.”
Echoing similar concerns, World Food Programme Acting Director Carl Skau warned that “serious disruptions to maritime trade now threaten to push tens of millions more people into food insecurity.”
