Ireland returned to the top of the global food security index (GFSI) table for 2021, somewhat under the radar. Given what has happened in Ukraine over recent weeks and what it has done to both the availability and cost of energy and fertiliser and likely impact on food production and trade later this year, it is worth exploring Ireland’s place in contributing to global food supply.

A mix of weighted criteria is used in putting the index together in which 100 is the most favourable food security environment. The top two criteria are food affordability and food availability, each with a 34.2% weighting, followed by quality and safety plus natural resources and resilience, each with a 17.6% weighting.

Ireland scored 92.9 for affordability, coming second behind Denmark which scored 93.1. Ireland came eighth for availability, scoring 75.1, with Singapore topping the table at 82.9. Ireland’s quality and safety scored 94.5, with the US and Canada marginally ahead at 94.3 and 94.5 respectively. For natural resources Ireland scored 74.1 behind Norway on 76.1 and Finland on 75.1.

Wealth equals security

It follows that the top positions in the GFSI are occupied by wealthier, often significant agri-food producing countries. The top 10 positions are filled by countries scoring between 84 for Ireland and 79.1 for the US (Figure 1).

At the other end of the scale are the poorer countries, often with limited production capacity and most exposed to global trade. The bottom 12 countries (Figure 2) all score under 40 on the GFSI, ranging from Burundi which scores just 34.7 to Venezuela on 39.4.

The index has been around since 2012 and showed strong progress in the first half of the decade, peaking in 2019. In the past two years it has slipped back due to a combination of COVID-19, climate events and conflict. Countries like the US and Australia are further down the tables than might be expected and these are two examples where climate events have taken place in the form of prolonged droughts.

Changes

The biggest change over the past two years has been the drop in food affordability, with 70 of the 113 countries assessed showing a drop in their GFSI ranking.

On the other hand, the best-performing category of quality and food safety has shown consistent improvement, with the top 40 countries producing a GFSI of 80 or better. This is attributed to “widespread adoption of nutritional plans or strategies” by the report.

The report is fulsome in its praise for the Irish model, which it notes has over the decade been able to keep food costs down while tackling inequality with a safety net in place with the “big jump in agricultural R&D” also mentioned.

Reflecting on a decade of improvement in the GFSI and relative stability contrasts dramatically with events of recent months.

Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, serious inflation had developed for energy, fertiliser and animal feed. These have been further added to by the war, particularly for European farmers and processors who are so dependent on Russia for energy, particularly gas and consequently fertiliser manufacture.

It is inevitable that this will drive production and processing costs upwards, affecting the affordability index, and supply and cost of fertiliser is likely to have consequences for the food availability index as well.

Poorer countries that don’t have the production capability are dependent on internationally traded supplies of agri-food products.

Alongside this is the fact that the world demand for meat and dairy products is forecast by FAO to grow for the decade ahead. Despite recent doubts expressed on the viability of Irish dairy exports in particular, Ireland is in a good place to sustainably contribute to meeting this demand.