Food crises rarely have a single cause, so resilience rarely has a single solution.
A country may have strong farms but weak storage. Another may have enough food but poor household purchasing power. A third may depend on one fertilizer supplier or one shipping corridor.
The most useful strategy is to strengthen several parts of the food system at the same time.
1. Improve agricultural water management
Water is fundamental to food production. FAO reports that agriculture accounts for about 72% of global freshwater withdrawals.
Better irrigation efficiency, groundwater management, soil-moisture practices and crop choices can improve resilience.
The goal is not simply to use more water. It is to produce more reliably from water that can be used sustainably.
2. Reduce food loss and waste
Food lost after harvest is still a loss of land, water, energy and labour.
Better drying, storage, roads, cold chains, packaging and market coordination can keep more of the food already produced available for consumption.
Reducing waste at the retail and household level matters too.
3. Diversify suppliers and trade routes
Dependence on one port, country, supplier or maritime chokepoint creates concentration risk.
Multiple suppliers and alternative routes can give importers more options when one source is disrupted.
Diversification does not require abandoning efficient trade. It means avoiding a system in which one failure has no practical alternative.
4. Improve fertilizer efficiency
The best response to fertilizer risk is not automatically “use more fertilizer.”
Better soil testing, precision application, correct timing and nutrient-balanced farming can improve productivity per unit of fertilizer.
That can lower costs while reducing exposure to international fertilizer shocks.
5. Strengthen crop and livestock resilience
Breeding, seed systems, animal health, soil management and farm diversification can reduce exposure to drought, heat, pests and disease.
The right combination depends on local conditions.
6. Maintain appropriate food reserves
Strategic and commercial stocks can help absorb temporary shocks.
But reserves are not a substitute for functioning production and trade.
Stocks work best when governments also understand where bottlenecks are and have clear rules for releasing and replenishing supplies.
7. Improve early-warning systems
Authorities and markets need timely information about rainfall, crop conditions, commodity prices, fertilizer availability, transport and nutrition.
Early warning does not prevent every crisis, but it can create more time to respond before a local disruption becomes a larger emergency.
8. Protect household access to food
Food security is about people, not only tonnes.
When prices rise, low-income households can cut both the quantity and nutritional quality of food they buy.
Targeted social protection and humanitarian assistance can help protect access during severe shocks.
9. Strengthen logistics and storage
Ports, roads, railways, warehouses and cold-chain facilities are part of food security.
A crop cannot feed people if it cannot be moved or stored safely.
Investment in infrastructure can reduce bottlenecks and make supply chains less vulnerable to disruption.
10. Build several layers of resilience
No single policy should carry the entire burden.
Water efficiency, fertilizer efficiency, trade diversification, food-loss reduction, social protection and climate adaptation reinforce one another.
What should governments prioritize?
The priorities differ by country.
An import-dependent country may gain more from diversified trade and strategic stocks.
A drought-prone farming region may need water management and crop adaptation.
A conflict-affected area may need humanitarian access and protection of local markets.
A high-price environment may require social protection as well as supply-side measures.
What businesses and households can do
Food companies can diversify suppliers, improve inventory visibility and maintain backup logistics options.
Farmers can improve soil and water management and use better market information.
Households can reduce waste and maintain sensible reserves rather than reacting to every alarming headline.
What the 2026 evidence suggests
The current food-system risks are interconnected. FAO’s recent work links water scarcity, fertilizer disruption, energy markets, weather and trade to food-system resilience.
That means prevention should focus on reducing points of failure rather than predicting one “big” crisis.
See Water & Food for the agricultural water challenge, Fertilizer for input risk, and Supply Chains for trade resilience.
Bottom line
Preventing food crises is less about finding one miracle solution and more about building systems that can absorb shocks.
The strongest resilience comes from redundancy, timely information, efficient resource use, reliable infrastructure and protection for people who are least able to absorb higher prices or disrupted access.