Yield improvements, water usage, and trade: three words that sound like a politician’s manifesto brainstorm. Yet, they are the three major factors holding everything together when it comes to food supply, according to David Fickling of Bloomberg.
His latest opinion editorial is like a harbinger of woe, and he says the first category is at the highest level of risk. Citing falling yields for the first time in decades, he offers a sobering look at the current numbers.
Let’s look closer at these 3 threats to the global food supply.
1. Falling Yields Are Sounding Alarm Bells
As any grower knows, producing food consistently is never straightforward. When you scale this understanding to the global food production industry, the pressures on this agricultural miracle increase.
“Total factor productivity … has stood at 0.76% over the past decade,” Fickling writes, adding the implications for this figure. He concedes it will be barely a third of what the planet will need with a population of 10 billion people. That number is the United Nations’ 2050 rough prediction.
Staple Crops Under Threat
Finkling’s next assertion may prove a warning to start experimenting with certain staples of your own. “The picture is even worse if you look at some individual plants,” he warns. “Yield growth for the three main cereals — corn, rice, and wheat — has nearly flatlined over the past five years.”
What’s more, major vegetable oils are in the same predicament, partly affected by the rise in demand for biofuels. Therefore, we can expect price increases, according to a report from the agriculture market research platform Tridge.
Of course, the one resource farm production relies on is water, which may be behind this gradual decline.
2. Water Supply and the Ground Beneath Us
On the domestic front, America’s groundwater crisis was making headlines over a decade ago. In short, the country’s groundwater stocks have been suffering depletion; some states are in a continuous crisis. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) defines this problem as “long-term water-level declines caused by sustained groundwater pumping.”
If you farm property in states like California, Texas, and Kansas, chances are you are going to face a groundwater crisis one day if things worsen. A 2025 research paper explores which states have the poorest groundwater health and how long their aquifers will last.
It’s bad news for homesteads and backyards in California’s Central Valley, Southwest Kansas, and the Texas/Oklahoma Panhandle counties. These four states currently face a bleak outlook unless something changes.
Of course, there are a variety of ways anyone who plants in this region can use to save and conserve water. Moreover, modern farmers and growers always have one weapon on their side: technology and smart solutions.
3. Global Conflicts and Their Effects on Trade
The final element in Finkling’s prophecy is the food trade. His post comes with a chart showing all the world’s food exporters. Of the 19 countries listed, only 12 are major operators. Such a reality means the pressure on those exporters grows as the world’s population’s demands increase.
It isn’t hard to find examples of when food insecurity is a consequence of conflict. Ukrainian sunflower oil production came into conflict, pushing prices up across the world. Alarmingly, Ukraine is the second-highest exporter of food, after the United States.
Sadly, war and trade disputes are common, leaving the cost of food production vulnerable. Clearly, there has never been a better time to grow one’s own produce or support local farming.