The Government plans to set out its programme and priorities for Ireland’s EU presidency in June. Much of the programme will involve advancing the ongoing EU agenda within a fragile geopolitical situation. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has indicated to his fellow EU leaders that the priorities will include strengthening EU competitiveness, reinforcing security especially on Ukraine and energy, and upholding core EU values. Advancing negotiations on the Multiannual Financing Framework for the period 2028-34 is a key objective.
The Government will also wish to provide a distinctly Irish contribution to the agenda for the presidency. Three types of priorities should inform what the contribution should be: priorities relevant to short- and longer-term global concerns; priorities which the EU can make a difference to at global level; and priorities reflecting Ireland’s long-term values and interests.
Based on these, there is a case for including two linked issues – food and nutrition security, and an enhanced strategic partnership between the EU and Africa.
Three dimensions to current global food problems
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The current global food situation is precarious. This precarity has three dimensions: the increase in the number of people suffering from hunger and severe food insecurity; the slow-motion movement towards a broader food crisis; and the possible impact of El Niño during the second half of 2026.
The Global Network Against Food Crises reported last month that 266 million people experienced high levels of acute food and nutrition insecurity in 2025, reflecting the sixth consecutive annual increase in such a number. Conflict is the primary driver of this, with weather extremes and economic shocks other important factors.
Major countries where conflict directly causes food insecurity include Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Yemen. These countries and many others are in protracted conflict situations with no real efforts towards conflict resolution or peace processes. A UN system weakened by the move away from multilateralism by key member states does not have the capacity for conflict prevention or resolution that it formerly had.
The cutbacks in aid across most countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2025 have also impacted upon humanitarian and development financing to crisis-hit food sectors which has fallen back to levels last observed in 2016-2017.
The slow-motion movement towards a broader food crisis is directly linked to the US-Israel war against Iran and resulting higher energy and fertiliser prices. Some 30 per cent of world fertiliser supplies or raw materials pass through the Strait of Hormuz. If the blockage of the strait continues until midyear, resulting in high energy prices and reduced supplies of fertiliser, the World Food Programme estimates that an extra 45 million lives could fall into acute hunger.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index moved upwards by 2.4 per cent in March, and this trend will almost certainly continue over the coming months. While the FAO is not yet predicting a food price crisis, partly due to moderately high levels of global grain stocks, the situation could deteriorate, particularly if there is not a rapid resolution to the US-Israel war on Iran.
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Inevitably, rising food prices most seriously impact the poorest people, who spend a significant proportion of their limited income on food. The regions most severely affected will be sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
El Niño involves a warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific, coupled with changes in the atmosphere. Current forecasts suggest that a 2026-27 El Niño is quite likely, and could be particularly strong. If this occurs, there is a high risk of yield losses in Asia and parts of Africa. The last El Niño, in 2023-24, brought the worst drought in 100 years to the Southern African region, resulting in an additional 30 million people requiring food assistance.
Should these three precarities for the food situation worsen over the coming months, there is a significant risk that the EU presidency will coincide with a global food crisis which could drive an additional 50-100 million people – probably a worst-case scenario – into extreme poverty and food insecurity.
Although history never exactly repeats itself, lessons can be learned from the food price crisis of 2007-08. This resulted from a price spike in the major food commodities of wheat, maize and rice, against the background of three decades of falling real food prices. The crisis led to an additional 100 million people being pushed into hunger, triggering food riots and protests in more than 20 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 report paints a stark picture of Africa as the main world region where food security is deteriorating
This led to decisive political action. Food and nutrition security moved up the international political agenda. Ban Ki-moon, then UN secretary general, established a High-Level Task Force on Global Food Security, appointing the late Dr David Nabarro as his special representative for Food Security and Nutrition with a mandate to co-ordinate the efforts of all UN agencies to address the crisis. Nabarro oversaw the development of a Comprehensive Framework for Action, a set of short and longer term actions at national and international level which contributed to de-escalating the crisis.
[ Ireland has duty to lead on food security due to famine history - TaoiseachOpens in new window ]
A key lesson from the 2007-08 food price crisis was the importance of keeping an open global trading system, and for food-exporting countries to refrain from imposing export bans.
Today, the most important priority is an end to the Iran war, with the many economic consequences arising from it. But serious contingency planning for a possible food price crisis later in 2026 must also be carried out. A decision to make food and nutrition security a priority for the presidency could contribute to that planning.
Growing importance of Africa
Africa is destined to grow in geopolitical and economic importance over the coming decades. It is the region with the fastest growing and youngest population globally, projected to double to reach 2.5 billion by 2050.
The strategic partnership between Africa and the EU has substantially developed since 2000. Making food and nutrition security a priority for the presidency would send a timely and powerful signal that the EU wishes to have a strategic partnership with Africa, not just to assist with its short-term emergency food situation but to address an issue which is fundamental to its long-term political, economic and social development.
Africa’s performance in enhancing its own food security has been disappointing. The Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme, which has been in place since 2003, set ambitious investment and output expansion targets, but these targets have consistently fallen short.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025 report paints a stark picture of Africa as the main world region where food security is deteriorating. More than 20 per cent of the African population is undernourished (about 307 million people). It is projected that by 2030, nearly 60 per cent of the world’s chronically undernourished people will be in Africa.
There are positive signs that lessons have been learned by African political leaders. The Kampala Declaration, adopted in January 2025 by African Union heads of state and government, is a 10-year programme (2026-35) designed to transform national and continental food systems. It aims to boost agricultural output by 45 per cent, triple intra-Africa trade, improve nutrition, and create jobs to ensure food security and economic growth.
There are many positive aspects to the declaration, including action to deal with the impact of climate on food systems, acknowledging the critical role of women and youth in delivering on the targets, increasing the value added to African commodities, and recognising that the effective operation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area is pivotal to delivering on the declaration’s ambitions.
The major factors in delivering the Kampala Declaration will be African political will and leadership, capacity building, and increasing agricultural productivity within rural development policies that create jobs for the rapidly growing youth population.
While primary responsibility for all this rests on African leaders and its people, a strategic partnership with European governments, businesses and civil society will be critical to success. Ireland’s EU presidency is an opportunity to signal the political commitment to that partnership.
Tom Arnold is chair of the Ireland Africa Rural Development Committee. He chaired the Task Force Rural Africa for the EC Commission (2019)
