Food and agricultural trade increased fivefold between 2000 and 2024, with low- and middle-income countries becoming more integrated into global markets. Yet these markets face growing exposure to shocks, including extreme weather, conflicts, pandemics, macroeconomic pressures and financial crises, according to a new flagship report released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
According to the 2026 edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets examines how such shocks affect trade, how disruptions are transmitted through trade linkages, and what this means for global food security. It highlights the need for trade policies that reflect the interdependence of agrifood systems, strengthen resilience and help mitigate the effects of shocks on food markets and food security.
Shocks to the world’s increasingly interconnected food and agricultural markets are growing in frequency and intensity, and evidence suggests there are effective policy measures that can mitigate and shorten their impact, according to the new report.
With the value of food and agricultural trade up fivefold since 2000 to about $2 trillion, and with more and more countries integrated into trade networks, bolstering their resilience in the face of disruptive shocks is a global concern.
Crafting supportive policy frameworks, which require international cooperation, has demonstrably positive effects in curbing the price and hunger consequences of shocks, according to research presented in the new edition of The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO) 2026.
Fewer and shorter-lived export restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, led to only 8% of globally traded calories being impacted, down from 16 percent during the 2007-08 period when a confluence of shocks triggered a sharp spike in food commodity prices.
Key messages of SOCO 2026
— Global food and agricultural markets are exposed to a range of shocks, including extreme weather events, economic and financial disturbances, geopolitical tensions and conflicts, pandemics, and energy price fluctuations, and these disruptions can be systemic.
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— Better connectivity within the trade network strengthens buffering capacities in the face of shocks – countries that can source food from more trade partners are generally more resilient to shocks.
— When major producers implement export restrictions to protect their domestic markets, they transfer instability to global markets and contribute to increased food insecurity worldwide.
— Following a shock, export volumes across bilateral trade links decline significantly, with the effects fading within a period of six months.
— Shock-triggered food commodity price spikes can have a persistent impact and are not matched by downward price movements.
New evidence
SOCO 2026 presents several findings based on original research that sheds light on the relatively understudied area of the shock reaction dynamics related to food markets.
Notably, they show global food trade relatively resilient, typically adjusting to shocks within months. That resilience does not depend only on the structure of global markets and trade, but equally on the policy choices.
Nevertheless, this adjustment entails wide food price movements that can be persistent, posing food security risks, particularly for low-income net food-importing countries.
Globalized markets mean that major shocks do generate significant effects in domestic markets. The report analyzed the average velocity and magnitude at which weather shocks affecting world prices for wheat, maize and rice propagate and pass through to local markets. While specific factors can vary, wheat markets tend to be the fastest to normalize, while for rice, disruptions last longer and price movements are greater, reflecting the low trade-intensity of the global rice market.
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Countries that rely heavily on a limited number of exporters face heightened risks and are especially vulnerable. An exercise, based on monthly trade data from all countries in the world during the 2007–2024 period, found that, for a food-importing country, being connected to exporters with many trade links – for example trade hubs – can moderate the effects of a shock.
Changes in trade policies contributed substantially to the increases in world prices of staple foods during the 2007–08 global food price crisis. Insulating policies and reactive border protection rates are estimated to explain about 45 percent of the increase in the world rice market and 30 percent of that for wheat.
A scenario simulating the impact of a strong warm-phase of El Niño shock affecting multiple countries suggests that export restrictions add 21.4 million people to those pushed into hunger initially due to the shock.
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