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The war in Ukraine, the escalating conflict in the Middle East, and accelerating climate change are increasingly affecting global food security. Today's challenges demonstrate that the stability of the global food market depends not only on agricultural production but also on resilient logistics, reliable critical infrastructure, and effective international cooperation.

This was emphasized by Pavlo Koval, Director General of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation (UAC), commenting to GlobalWatch on the growing risks facing the global agricultural sector.

According to Koval, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine marked a turning point for the global food supply system. The blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea ports in 2022 exposed the vulnerability of international food supply chains. The simultaneous surge in grain, energy, fertilizer, and transportation costs quickly affected markets across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

According to preliminary estimates by Oil World, global sunflower seed production in the 2026/27 marketing year could rise to 63.3 million tonnes, compared with 57.5 million tonnes in the previous season and an average of 56.2 million tonnes over the past five years. As a result, the market is moving closer to historic highs, driven by expansion in key producing countries.

Dry weather is disrupting crop planting across Asia, raising concerns about food supplies in the world's most populous region, and an expected severe El Nino weather pattern could inflict more damage.

From ​India's grain-producing northwestern plains to Australia's eastern wheat belt, and from Thailand's rice fields to Indonesia's vast palm oil plantations, hot weather and below-normal rains are hurting crops ‌and forcing farmers to reduce planting, farmers, analysts and traders said.

Stocks of grain and leguminous crops in Ukraine as of May 1, 2026 amounted to 12.7 million tons, which is 4.8 million tons more than the indicator on the same date a year earlier, according to data from the State Statistics Service.

It is noted that by the reporting date, 8.1 million tons of grain and leguminous crops were stored in agricultural enterprises, which is 52.8% more than the indicator on the same date a year earlier, and 4.6 million tons (+74.5%) were stored in processing and storage enterprises.