International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) researchers model scenarios where simultaneous crop shocks hit major breadbasket regions, showing sharp increases in food insecurity when losses occur in developing regions and meaningful global food price spikes when disruptions originate in North America and Europe.

Global food security is increasingly exposed to the risk of multiple, simultaneous “breadbasket failures” as climate-driven droughts, storms and floods intensify and agricultural production remains concentrated in a limited number of key producing regions, according to an analysis by IFPRI researchers Will Martin, Reza Nia and Rob Vos. The authors note that around 80% of the world’s population relies primarily on maize, rice and wheat, and that production of these staples is concentrated in a small number of “breadbasket” regions. 

The researchers assess the potential market and food-security impacts of multiple breadbasket failures using IFPRI’s MIRAGRODEP global model. For illustrative purposes, they model a 25% yield decline across affected regions under two contrasting scenarios: simultaneous shocks in developing regions (Eastern and Southern Africa plus South Asia) versus shocks concentrated in high-income breadbaskets (North America and Europe). 

DEVELOPING-REGION SHOCKS HIT FOOD SECURITY HARDEST

The analysis finds that when large-scale yield losses occur across developing breadbasket regions, impacts on global and regional food security become far more severe. A modeled multiple breadbasket failure causing a 25% yield loss in Eastern and Southern Africa and South Asia would raise the global prevalence of undernourishment by an estimated 2 percentage points, affecting around 160 million additional people. In affected regions, food insecurity could increase by 4 to 10 percentage points, as farming households lose output and income while vulnerable consumers face sharply higher prices. 

HIGH-INCOME BREADBASKET SHOCKS DRIVE PRICE SPIKES

When the modeled failures are concentrated in North America and Europe, the researchers estimate a larger near-term shock to global prices and incomes: world food prices rise by 10%–14% in the year of the shock, while global real incomes fall by about 1%, reflecting these regions’ weight in the global economy and trade. However, the direct increases in poverty and undernourishment are more muted than in the developing-region scenario, partly because higher prices may offset production losses for some farmers. 

IFPRI highlights two principal channels through which synchronized failures can worsen food insecurity: reduced income for farm households in affected areas, and higher food prices that erode purchasing power for net food buyers, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.