Kit Pulliam – Yahoo Finance Aug 18, 2026

When it comes to food security, things may get worse before they get better. And as Howard Jones sang in his 1985 hit, “Things Can Only Get Better,” he “won’t stop and falter.”

That’s a fitting attitude for Americans staring down the possibility of even higher grocery bills. A new report from JPMorgan, Food Security is National Security: A Compounding Storm, warns that global food costs could climb 5% in the first half of 2027. That’s up from the current US food inflation rate of 3% — a number that’s already putting pressure on household budgets.

The U.S. isn’t among the countries most likely to be directly hit by the food-security threats JPMorgan forecasts. But that doesn’t mean Americans will be sheltered from them.

America relies on imports for many of its staple foods, including coffee, cocoa and sugar. All of these goods are generally supplied to the US by the countries that are most likely to be directly impacted.

Here’s what’s putting global food access at risk and why some countries are better prepared than others.

El Niño, Iran War and fertilizer shortages

There are two prongs to JPMorgan’s predicted food deficits: a fertilizer shortage and a monumental weather event.

And the Strait of Hormuz’s closure wasn’t just bad for gasoline prices. The strait also sees about a third of the world’s nitrogen fertilizer — an essential form of fertilizer for around half of the world’s crops.

Nitrogen fertilizer shortages are a ticking time bomb. Because it’s needed during the early stages of crop growth, we could still be feeling the effects of a shortage as much as a year later.

“Agriculture operates within a crop calendar that cannot be postponed, said Qu Dongyu, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in a news post on their website. “Fertilizers must be applied at specific moments in the crop cycle. If they do not arrive on time, yields are reduced, regardless of what happens later.”

At the same time, the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center is estimating over a 90% chance of a “very strong” El Niño during the winter and fall of 2026. There’s a 69% chance that it’s the biggest El Niño on record since 1950.

During an El Niño event, central and eastern Pacific Ocean surfaces are significantly warmer than normal. This can impact countries’ weather worldwide, raising temperatures and causing droughts in some parts of the world.

All of these can impact how healthy crop yields are. For this El Niño, JPMorgan expects Asia and Latin America to bear the brunt.

China has been preparing for crop and fertilizer shortages

The U.S. has been using its oil reserves to weather shortages caused by the Strait of Hormuz closure. China is doing something similar in the face of a food crisis: It’s leaning on its fertilizer and crop stockpiles.

That places China in a better position — a more resilient position when compared to the U.S. The U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins says this makes crop yields a matter of national security.

“Food security is national security,” said Rollins in an X post. “If America cannot feed itself, it cannot fully defend itself.”

JPMorgan has warned before that food shortages could represent a national security issue for countries, including the US.

When I wrote my recent pieces on the intersection of climate and national security and agriculture and food security, I didn’t expect so many examples of ‘climate as a threat multiplier’ to emerge so quickly,” said Dr. Sarah Kapnick, global head of climate advisory at JPMorgan, in an earlier article for JPMorgan. “We are seeing some of those vulnerabilities at play today.”

Building a food and fertilizer stockpile of our own might not save the US in time for the food shortage in 2027, but it could help us stay more resilient for the years of climate change to come.

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