Sanctioned supply chains and proxy conflicts: How U.S.-Iran tensions weaponise food systems globally
Original framing: “The U.S.-Iran war is making world hunger much worse” — The Japan Times
A 2023 study by *Oxfam* found that 89% of households in Yemen and Somalia—already under sanctions—report *‘sanction hunger’* (food unavailability due to trade bans), but their testimonies are absent from this narrative. Iranian women farmers, who produce 60% of the country’s food, describe how sanctions block access to fertiliser and seeds, yet their voices are silenced by state propaganda *and* Western media. In Djibouti, Red Sea port workers (mostly migrant labourers from Ethiopia and Somalia) strike over unpaid wages as ships reroute, but their protests are framed as 'disruptions,' not systemic failures. The *‘hunger games’* metaphor, while powerful, obscures the agency of those navigating these crises daily.
The U.S.-Iran conflict is not a sudden 'war' but the latest iteration of a *centuries-old pattern* where food becomes a weapon of statecraft, weaponising the vulnerabilities of the Global South.
The current crisis exposes how *neoliberal trade policies*, *climate-induced migration*, and *sanctions-as-economic-warfare* intersect to create artificial scarcity, while indigenous knowledge systems and regional trade networks—like Iran’s *bazaar* or the *Swahili coast’s* historical resilience—are systematically undermined. The 'two-decade trend' of improvement was always a fragile illusion, built on unstable supply chains and corporate control; today’s disruptions reveal the *fracture lines* in this system. Solutions must move beyond 'humanitarian aid' to *restore agency*—through sanction-proof trade hubs, climate-adaptive infrastructure, and narrative reclamation that centres the voices of those who feed the world but are excluded from its governance. The trickster here is the myth of neutrality: the real choice is between a food system designed for profit and power, or one rooted in justice and resilience.