How nations secure their staples is looming large in elections across the world with war in Ukraine and now the Middle East. ADVERTISEMENT CONTINUE READING BELOW Starting with New Zealand and Poland this weekend, at least a quarter of the global population will head to the polls over the next eight months or so. Those countries will be followed by Argentina, the Netherlands and Egypt, and then Indonesia and India in 2024.
“We are in a world where everybody’s pandering to domestic issues,” said Tim Benton, a research director at Chatham House in London specialising in food security. Climate politics have emerged as a defining line between the left and right. In Europe and the Americas, the issue of conflating climate change, globalization and the protection of local production is aligned with the resurgence of more radical parties, according to risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
In the Netherlands, the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural produce, farmers have turned into a political force before elections in November. Opposition leader Donald Tusk, an ex-Polish premier and former European Council president, has sought to mollify the radical leader of the farmers. Today, that dependence coupled with the shortage of dollars needed to buy more food are conspiring to keep inflation high as the nation reels from its worst economic crisis in years. There’s also now the question of war on its doorstep. That’s presenting a challenge for President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who is seeking another term in December elections.