Targeting of the U.S. wheat industry – intellectual property, production, and export – would have devastating effects not only on our ability to engage in international trade but could also destabilize our own food security in the homeland.
What is our resiliency to food disruption in the context of strategic competition with great powers below the threshold of armed conflict?
Great Power competitors of the United States view the production and export of grains, wheat in particular, as a part of their national security strategy. And while President Biden’s U.S. National Security Strategy points to food security as one of the top five shared global challenges, there is much more we, the United States, can do to contribute to our own food security and at the same time elevate our global diplomatic position.
We ought to re-establish our history as a major player in wheat production, storage, export, and diplomacy. Food security and export capacity is a national security concern as:
- Wheat production is a diplomatic tool associated with national power and projection of that power.
- Food insecurity on the home front could be devastating to the stability of our nation. Food shortages could cause the same sort of instability the rest of the world has known in recent years – experiences that seem far from American memories.
The U.S. has fallen to fourth place, behind Russia, China and India in wheat production. We were not always in this position. There was a time when the United States led.
During WW1, the prime ministers of Italy, France, and Great Britain jointly appealed to President Hoover for assistance with food shortages described as “the greatest danger at present threatening each of the European Allies.” And during the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet competition focused on economic warfare that the U.S. was able to dominate due to stockpiles of wheat and healthy production cycles. The “Food for Peace” initiative, for example, recognized American agriculture as a pillar of statecraft.
American wheat power was recognized by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations not only as economic power but as integral to the projection of national power.
China, India, and Russia, in that order, are now the world’s largest wheat producers. In addition to being the largest producer, China is also the world’s largest consumer of wheat. She also has a considerable national grain reserve. The U.S. has no national grain reserves.
China is pursuing an aggressive foreign investment policy and in the last decade has spent almost $100 billion in pursuit of foreign intellectual property specifically targeting agricultural production and technology. With the acquisition of Syngenta for $43 billion China acquired a significant percentage of the world’s agricultural intellectual property. That purchase should have alarmed and alerted us that China is pursuing the win without fighting strategy that could not be more explicit.
Russia, operating under the principles of the Primakov doctrine, focused on interfering with international order, has already attacked the United States with unconventional means. What if Russia continues to conduct war by other means thereby targeting U.S. wheat production and export? The disruption of wheat production would have major consequences for food security within the U.S. as we have no national grain reserve.
Ukraine, until the war began, was the world’s seventh largest producer of wheat. In an act of food war, Russia targeted Ukrainian grain and port facilities with air strikes. Russian naval vessels surrounded Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and laid mines along trade routes. This targeting of Ukrainian grain supplies is a violation of international law and is a strategically organized war crime.
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine exported more than 60 million tons of grain a year – 10 percent of the global market. Since the invasion, Russian grain exports have reached highs.
Further, the Ukrainian loss of wheat export has ripple effects for those formerly supplied by Ukrainian exports. Africa has been hit particularly hard. As recently as a few days ago, on July 11 2024, Ukraine intercepted an international freighter transporting stolen Ukrainian grain from Russian-occupied Crimea.
Great power competitors of the U.S. recognize that the production of export grains, wheat in particular, are tools of diplomacy, statecraft, and the projection of national power. While our competitors engage in fierce competition for intellectual properties for breeding, production, and for physical venues for export, the U.S. is not dominating. We can fix that if we choose to.
Ajit Maan, Ph.D. is a Professor of Practice, Politics and Global Security, at Arizona State University
CEO of the award-winning think tank, Narrative Strategies,
Columnist for Homeland Security Today
She is also the daughter of the late Dr. S.S. Maan, one of the world’s leading scientists in the field of wheat cytogenetics