Athens imported a third of its grain through the Bosporus. Constantinople sat on that chokepoint and extracted rent from the dependency.

The Strait of Hormuz is the same pattern. 2,500 years later.

Chokepoints aren't anomalies. They're a structural feature of every food system that depends on distant supply.

The only durable fix isn't managing the chokepoint. It's reducing the dependency that made it powerful.

#FoodSecurity #FoodSovereignty #FoodPolicy

Found a piece on stewardship vs ownership at the heart of Canada's resource strategy.

The framing is about oil. But the argument travels.

"Ownership asks what can I take. Stewardship asks what must I leave stronger."

Canada's food and water are a national trust in exactly the same sense.

Food sovereignty is a stewardship question, not just a supply chain one.

#FoodSovereignty #Stewardship #CdnAg #FoodPolicy

https://open.substack.com/pub/letterkenny/p/what-the-hell-is-carney-doing?r=5bh5bl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

This piece tracks three converging pressures on global food buffers: a 50% urea price spike hitting smallholder farmers at planting season, the worst US Midwest spring drought on record, and a forecast below-normal Indian monsoon.

2009-2011? 👀 Thin reserves, economic stress, and energy shocks converging — food riots pending?

Mother nature still has a vote. But the structural conditions are already baked in.

#FoodSecurity #FoodCrisis #FoodPolicy #AgriFoodCA

https://open.substack.com/pub/evandgfraser/p/a-year-for-breaking-records?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5bh5bl

Helen Freeman flags a Soil Association report that deserves more attention.

The core point: resilience isn't about surviving one bad season. It's about whole farm systems that can absorb shocks — soil that holds water, crops that aren't locked into synthetic input chains, markets that don't punish long-term thinking.

The slow-moving risks are always the ones that catch us unprepared.

#FoodSecurity #SoilHealth #Agroecology #FoodPolicy

https://open.substack.com/pub/memypigsandi/p/the-warning-is-clear-the-response?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

The 2018 Revision of Italian Dietary Guidelines: Development Process, Novelties, Main Recommendations, and Policy Implications

Abs…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Italiandiet #ConsumerBehavior #DietaryGuidelines #foodpolicy #HouseholdFoodSafety #Italia #Italian #ItalianDiet #italiano #italy #Nutritionalrecommendations #sustainability
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2552350/the-2018-revision-of-italian-dietary-guidelines-development-process-novelties-main-recommendations-and-policy-implications/

Farmers’ voices in European protests

Farmers’ protests swept across Europe in 2024. Researchers analysed surveys from over 2,200 farmers in Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. They found a wide range of concerns that differed markedly between countries. Farmers’ motivations go far beyond commonly cited issues such as environmental regulations: complaints ranged from bureaucracy and low incomes to political dissatisfaction and uncertainty about the future of farming: https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/3240.html?id=8066

Research in #FoodPolicy: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2025.102999