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Report Details How Climate Crisis Fuels Crop Failure Risk in Global Breadbaskets
"As globally important food-producing regions face growing risks of climate-driven disruption, the effects can ripple through livelihoods, supply chains, food assistance systems, and geopolitical relationships."
Jun 09, 2026
The climate emergency is sharply increasing the risk of crop failure in regions that produce an outsized share of the world's staple food grains, according to a report published Tuesday that warns of "serious threats to Europe, the NATO alliance, and global stability" if cooperative resilience initiatives and other mitigation strategies aren't pursued.
The report, "Global Breadbaskets: Food System Resilience as a Strategic Imperative," was published by the Center for Climate and Security—part of the Council on Strategic Risks, a Washington, DC-based security policy think tank—and the Woodwell Climate Research Center, an independent nonprofit located in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
"Geopolitical fragmentation, conflict, extreme weather, and global aid cuts already strain food security. Meanwhile, climate change is increasing the likelihood of crop failures in the American, European, and Asian breadbaskets, which produce most of the staple crops underpinning global food security," the report states.
🆕 Across India, France, and Germany, in the next decade and a half, the odds of key crops failing are set to increase by between two- and six-fold. This isn't just a food story. It's also a #NATO security story.
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— Council on Strategic Risks (@councilonstrategicrisks.org) June 9, 2026 at 12:13 AM
The publication follows an April report from a pair of United Nations agencies on how extreme heat is impacting food production and food security around the planet. The new report includes a storymap that explores climate change-driven threats to wheat, rice, and maize (corn) crops in France, Germany, and India—three of the world's "global breadbaskets."
The analysis' authors note that compared with 2010 threat levels, by 2040, "the risk of a given year’s crop failing is projected to grow roughly twofold for Indian wheat and German maize, roughly threefold for French wheat, roughly fourfold for French maize, and roughly sixfold for Indian rice, with sharp increases in critical producing regions."
Climate-driven extreme heat "not only threatens crops, but also the laborers and infrastructure that translate them into food security," the report continues. "Extreme heat is projected to reduce the suitability of 15-40% of India’s rain-fed rice-growing regions by 2050, and to reduce physical work capacity during the average growing season to as little as 40% of 2000-era levels by 2100."
"By 2040, southwestern France will average up to 16 additional days per year above 35°C (95°F), exceeding thresholds that reduce yields, impact grain quality, and cause heat stroke," the paper warns. "Extreme heat also threatens to damage or disable road and rail networks critical to food transportation, agricultural machinery, civil defense, and military mobilization."
The publication also states that global breadbasket failures in Europe "could open rifts for Russian meddling, fuel instability in key partners, and elevate food production as a geopolitical lever."
The Council on Strategic Risks operates within the transatlantic security policy community, whose work often overlaps with NATO's interests.
“We have plenty of examples of how crop failures can contribute to political instability, from the French Revolution to the Arab Spring," Center for Climate and Security deputy director and report lead author Tom Ellison said Tuesday in a statement. "In today’s environment, global breadbasket failures could strain NATO priorities, prompt unrest in key countries, and upend trade relationships."
Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist and report co-author Alexandra Naegele warned that “climate change doesn't just threaten crop yields and grain quality—it destabilizes entire food systems, from labor and livestock to food storage and transport."
"Quantifying these climate-driven risks is an essential step toward building resilient food systems and safeguarding global food security," she added.
The report recommends steps countries—specifically members of the European Union and NATO—can take to mitigate risks to food security, including strengthening cooperative resilience, anticipating instability and hybrid warfare, supporting strategic and vulnerable partners, coordinating trade responses, and investing in agricultural research and development.
"Amid climate change, geopolitical uncertainty, food shocks from the war in Iran, and Russian hybrid warfare, investing in a resilient food system isn’t in competition with security—it’s a key part of it," Ellison stressed.
Monica Caparas, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center and report co-author, said, "Understanding and preparing for breadbasket failures is both a national security priority and a humanitarian imperative—one that can help protect lives, reduce instability, and strengthen food resilience before a regional shock becomes a wider crisis."
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‘Makes No Sense’: NATO Allies Bash Trump’s Strait of Hormuz Blockade as Oil Rises Above $100 a Barrel
"It’s one more episode in this whole downward spiral into which we’ve been dragged,” said Spain's foreign minister.
Apr 13, 2026
Contrary to President Donald Trump's claim that "other countries will be involved" in imposing a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz after ceasefire talks ended over the weekend without a deal with Iran, North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries on Monday made clear they did not plan to join Trump's effort as the news of the blockade sent global oil prices skyrocketing once again.
“We are not supporting the blockade," British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the BBC Monday before the closure began at 10:00 am Eastern time. “It is in my view vital that we get the strait open and fully open, and that’s where we’ve put all of our efforts in the last few weeks, and we’ll continue to do so."
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened through diplomatic means, while Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles told Al Jazeera that Trump's decision to block ships “entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas" in the strait "makes no sense."
"It’s one more episode in this whole downward spiral into which we’ve been dragged,” said Robles, who along with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has vehemently condemned the US and Israel's decision to go to war with Iran and has refused to involve Spain's military assets in the conflict.
Starmer called the closure of the strait "deeply damaging" and said that this week the UK and France will convene a summit "to advance work on a coordinated, independent, multinational plan to safeguard international shipping when the conflict ends."
US Central Command said Monday that US forces “will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports," appearing to step back from Trump's original Sunday statement, which he reiterated Monday on Fox News, that he would impose a "complete blockade" on the key trade waterway.
The news of the blockade came after Iranian negotiators accused Vice President JD Vance of acting in bad faith in the high-level ceasefire talks and Vance claimed Iran would not comply with US demands regarding nuclear development.
The two-week ceasefire deal that was announced last Tuesday—just before a deadline Trump had imposed, saying the US would obliterate Iran's "whole civilization" unless the government struck a deal—sent oil and gas prices tumbling blow $100 per barrel, but prices rose again after Trump's new threat of a blockade.
Brent crude prices were at $102.52 per barrel on Monday, a 7.7% increase, while US crude also rose nearly 8% to $104.02. The UK's wholesale gas contract for the month of May rose by 11.7%.
About 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies passed through the Strait of Hormuz before Iran effectively closed the waterway after the US and Israel began the war, as well as major shipments of fertilizer.
Priyanka Sachdeva, a senior market analyst at the broker Phillip Nova, told The Guardian that "the market reaction" to Trump's threat "underscores a simple but powerful reality: Hormuz risk is not theoretical; it is structural, and it is real.”
“In today’s environment, every barrel of risk added to oil markets carries an inflation price tag for the global economy," Sachdeva said.
Trump's threat of a blockade included any ship that has paid Iran a toll to pass through the strait since the Middle Eastern country began its blockade, with the president accusing Iran of "extortion."
At Responsible Statecraft, Kelley Beaucar Vlahos wrote on Sunday that under Trump's threat, the US is now planning to block "major allies."
"The Philippines is a treaty ally and gets 98% of its energy resources through the strait," Vlahos wrote. "A Japanese vessel carrying liquefied natural gas reportedly passed through the strait two weeks ago."
Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the US blockade "is another step toward a might-makes-right world."
"Illegalities are being heaped on top of illegalities. The attack on Iran that started this war was compounded by Tehran's seizure of the Strait of Hormuz. Washington's blockade of the strait has further upped the ante," said Shidore.
An adviser to Iranian Supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said that Iran has "large, untouched levels" to fight back against a US blockade, while Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, said that Americans will soon "be nostaligic for $4-$5 gas."
At The Conversation, international law professor Donald Rothwell of Australian National University wrote that Trump's blockade would "certainly" imperil the fragile temporary ceasefire while roiling international markets.
"In purely legal terms, if the US imposes a blockade then the ceasefire is over and hostilities have resumed," wrote Rothwell.
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After Tantrum at NATO, Trump Reportedly Pushes Allies to Draw Up Plans to Fix His Iran Mess
Trump has shown he "is utterly helpless to fix the disaster he personally caused," and is now "trying to blame others for his own incompetence," said one critic.
Apr 09, 2026
Hours after President Donald Trump pitched an angry tantrum at US allies, he reportedly demanded that they draw up plans to help fix the geopolitical and economic disaster he caused by launching his illegal war with Iran.
In a Wednesday night social media post, Trump posted an all-caps tirade against members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who refused to commit forces to fight in a war he started without their approval or even consultation.
"NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN," Trump wrote. "REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!"
As Trump was attacking longtime allies, he was simultaneously demanding their help.
According to a Thursday report from Bloomberg, the US has been seeking "specific commitments from European allies on their pledge to help secure the Strait of Hormuz after the fighting in Iran stops," going so far as to request that they "present concrete plans to ensure navigation through the waterway within days."
Trump last month tried strong-arming allies into sending their navies into the strait to help secure safe passage of commercial vessels, but all of them refused.
Even as Trump is berating allies, he still hasn't achieved the primary goal of the ceasefire he announced on Tuesday: The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has kept shut down since the start of the war more than a month ago.
As Bloomberg reported on Thursday, ship traffic through the strait has "remained blocked," being "limited to a handful of Iran-linked ships, another sign that a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran has yet to improve flows through the world’s key energy chokepoint."
As the strait has remained shut, the price of Brent crude petroleum futures, which initially crashed upon news of the ceasefire deal, have been slowly climbing back up to the $100 mark.
Given Trump's failure to achieve even the most basic tenet of his own ceasefire deal, many critics questioned why US allies should commit to helping him clean up his own disaster.
Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor at Sky News, noted that "neither a military escort nor military force can reopen the Strait short of a full scale occupation of southern Iran and even then insurgents could keep it closed with the threat of action."
Journalist Marcy Wheeler observed that Trump's demands show he "is utterly helpless to fix the disaster he personally caused," and is now "trying to blame others for his own incompetence."
Economist Dean Baker encouraged US allies to remain completely defiant of the president.
"The European countries should specifically commit to pay the toll Iran is requesting," Baker wrote.
HuffPost White House correspondent SV Dáte summarized Trump's geopolitical strategy as follows: "I broke it, someone else can fix it."
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