Global Food Crisis and Islamic Economic Solutions
The world is currently facing a great paradox. On one hand, agricultural technology is advancing rapidly, with global food production increasing year on year. Technological revolutions have enabled humanity to produce food in far greater quantities than a few decades ago. Yet, on the other hand, millions of people still face the threat of hunger, malnutrition, and difficulty accessing adequate food. This phenomenon shows that the food problem is not solely about the ability to produce food, but also concerns how food is managed, distributed, and accessed by all levels of society.
The global food crisis has become one of the biggest challenges facing the world this decade. Various international institutions have repeatedly warned that global food security is in a vulnerable state. Geopolitical conflicts, climate change, supply chain disruptions, global inflation, and the increasing frequency of natural disasters have created immense pressure on the world’s food systems. Under these conditions, the food issue can no longer be viewed as merely an agricultural sector problem; it has become an economic, social, political, and even national security issue.
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck the world several years ago, the international community witnessed how fragile the global food system is. Mobility restrictions disrupted the distribution of various food commodities. Countries heavily dependent on imports began to experience difficulties in obtaining food supplies. Before the pandemic’s impact had fully subsided, the world was confronted with the Russia-Ukraine war, which triggered serious disruptions to the supply of wheat, corn, sunflower oil, and fertilisers—strategic commodities for many nations. Russia and Ukraine have long been known as global breadbaskets. When conflict occurred, the supply of various agricultural commodities was significantly disrupted. Global food prices soared sharply, creating a domino effect for many countries, particularly developing nations with high dependence on food imports. The rise in wheat prices was not only felt by European countries but also impacted communities in Asia and Africa, who had to pay more for their daily food needs.
The situation has been further exacerbated by increasingly tangible climate change. Extreme heatwaves, prolonged droughts, major floods, and shifting rainfall patterns have affected agricultural productivity in various regions of the world. The El Niño phenomenon, which has reappeared in recent years, has reduced food production in several major producing countries. When production declines while demand continues to rise alongside global population growth, pressure on food prices becomes unavoidable. Reports from various international organisations indicate that hundreds of millions of people still experience acute food insecurity. These figures show that the world’s food problems have not shown significant improvement. In some regions, conditions have actually worsened due to protracted conflicts and economic crises.
An interesting fact is that most hunger cases are not caused by the physical unavailability of food. Many countries actually have sufficient food supplies, but the poor lack the purchasing power to access them. This is the fundamental problem of the global food crisis. The world is not always short of food, but it often suffers from a lack of justice in food distribution. The global economic system, which is heavily oriented towards market mechanisms, often fails to ensure that poor communities gain adequate access to their basic needs. Food, which should be a right for every human being, turns into a commodity accessible only to those with economic means.
In the conventional economic perspective, price is considered the primary instrument capable of regulating the balance between supply and demand. When scarcity occurs, prices rise and encourage increased production. However, this approach often ignores the reality that millions of poor people do not have the ability to respond to these market mechanisms. When food prices increase, low-income groups are the first to feel the impact. This phenomenon is increasingly visible when food commodities become objects of speculation in global financial markets. Currently, various agricultural commodities are no longer traded solely to meet public consumption needs. Wheat, corn, soybeans, and various other food products have become investment instruments traded on various international derivative markets. As a result, food prices are often influenced by market sentiment and speculative activities that are not always related to real production or consumption conditions. When investors anticipate future supply disruptions, commodity prices can soar long before actual scarcity occurs. This situation creates instability that ultimately harms the wider community. For developing countries where a large proportion of the population allocates a significant share of income to food needs, rising food prices can directly increase poverty rates.
It is in this context that Islamic economics offers a different perspective. Unlike approaches that treat food solely as an economic commodity, Islam views food as a basic human need whose availability and affordability must be safeguarded.