Along with rising geopolitical tensions and higher defense budgets, some governments in Europe are weighing food stockpiles. This is understandable. Food and conflict have always been linked. But stockpiling cannot deliver lasting security in the twenty-first century. Building resilient agricultural capacity is the credible way to reduce risk.
The MSC Food Security Task Force argues that food security is a pillar of stability and national interest. When people cannot access food, social cohesion weakens and instability grows. In some conflicts, food is used as a tool. Access is blocked. Farms and storage are targeted. Supply chains are pressured to shape outcomes far away. Modern risks include cyber attacks on data and logistics and biological threats to crops and livestock. Strengthening food systems is therefore forward defense.
History shows that progress is possible even in insecure times. In 1965, as Indian and Pakistani tanks faced each other across the Punjab plains, another emergency was unfolding. India was entering a second year of drought, edging toward famine, while Pakistan faced grain shortages. The high-yielding wheat that would help rescue both countries had been developed through a scientific partnership in Mexico two decades earlier during World War II.
The conflict magnified the crisis by draining budgets and disrupting transport. American plant scientist Norman Borlaug pushed to move the Mexican wheat seeds despite delays. Within weeks, the seeds were in the ground. Within a few seasons, India and Pakistan were moving toward wheat self-sufficiency. Even in conflict and climate stress, South Asia achieved one of the fastest agricultural turnarounds in modern history.
This cooperation did not come from peaceful times. It was built during global upheaval because leaders understood that hunger and instability were challenges too large for any nation to solve alone. That spirit should not be abandoned now, especially as threats to global food systems mount.
Today’s food security challenges are broader. Producing more food is not enough. We must produce it sustainably and build systems that can withstand shocks from extreme weather, conflict, pandemics, and economic turbulence while still providing healthy diets and stable livelihoods. Innovation is essential, but so is cooperation.
Yet cooperation is weakening at the moment it is most needed. It is less clear where countries and partners gather to make decisions. This retreat may feel politically convenient, but it undermines national and global security. No country is insulated from volatile prices, disrupted trade, or the instability that follows hunger. The neutral spaces for cooperation created in the 1940s and strengthened in the 1960s remain essential.
Scientists and government leaders must work together. Researchers can help countries adapt crops and restore soils. Policymakers can shape trade, safety nets, and investment flows. Farmers and local enterprises bring ground truth, the realities that science and policy must address.
This broader collaboration, often called Track 1.5 or Track 2 diplomacy, is not a technical detail. It is the backbone of food security. In a world where hunger can spread as quickly as a weather pattern or a political shock, cooperation is national self-interest. If food becomes a zero-sum instrument of geopolitics, everyone will lose.
Three priorities stand out.
First, innovations must reach the people who need them most. Climate-ready crops, improved agronomy, and better forecasting reduce risks when policies and markets support access.
Second, neutral spaces for evidence-based decisions are essential. When countries share data and align around workable solutions, progress accelerates. Food security is not only humanitarian. It is security. The MSC Task Force warns that hunger and instability reinforce each other and that food is being weaponized through blocked access, attacks on farms, and pressure on supply chains. Treating food systems as strategic infrastructure means investing in early warning, stress testing, cyber and biosecurity, and data platforms that help countries act before crises escalate.
Third, resilience, not yield alone, must guide agricultural success.
These are not abstract ideas. Food insecurity shapes markets, migration, energy, and national stability. Investments in agricultural science, whether in Europe, the United States, Mexico, or across Africa and Asia, have some of the highest public returns. They have prevented conflicts and saved millions of lives.
Setting the table is not just a metaphor. It is the space where we share responsibility. Previous generations built cooperation because the alternative was unthinkable. Today, the stakes are no smaller. If innovation slows or cooperation fractures, hunger will rise. If they hold, billions will eat.
The table is there. What remains is to fill it with courage, coordination, and action equal to the times we live in.
Author: Bram Govaerts is Director General of CIMMYT.
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