Opinion | Food, Fertilisers And The Future: The Strategic Message In PM Modi’s Speech

We, as a nation, should not lose control over our food systems; and eventually, this loss of control over health systems, behavioural systems, and social resilience

Recent and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and around the world have revealed the layers of geopolitical contests at play. Countries are struggling to find solutions and alternatives for their populations’ needs, and nations are racing to secure sovereignty over semiconductors, energy corridors, and technologies of the future. These may increasingly unfold around the most basic need: human energy, through food and food systems. It is no longer an agricultural or nutritional issue. It sits at the intersection of trade strategy, industrial policy, public health and long-term national resilience. In this landscape, ultra-processed foods represent something considerably more than a mere shift in consumer preferences. They also pose a challenge to a nation’s and its society’s ability to redefine the underlying systems that drive consumption.

Very few leaders globally address issues with their people as directly as Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In his speech on Sunday, his stress on restraint in consumption, alongside the need to significantly reduce fertiliser use, points to a wider concern that India will increasingly confront in the coming decade: how does a rapidly modernising society avoid becoming trapped within industrial systems that simultaneously weaken environmental equilibrium, public health, and social resilience?

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Food Is Emerging As A Strategic Frontier

The global processed food economy does not emerge accidentally. It is built on highly organised agricultural and industrial architectures. A relatively small set of crops, particularly maize, soybean, sugar, and palm oil, forms the foundation of modern ultra-processed food systems. Countries that dominate these commodities disproportionately shape global food systems. The United States, Brazil, and, increasingly, Argentina operate as agricultural-industrial powers feeding the global processed-food........

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