CIMMYT joins global security leaders at the Munich Security Conference in calling for food systems to be treated as strategic infrastructure.
MUNICH, GERMANY, February 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Munich Security Conference (MSC), the world’s premier national security gathering, issued today a Joint Statement on the Resilience of Food Systems as Forward Defense. CIMMYT, as a founding partner in the MSC Food Security Task Force, is a signatory of the Joint Statement.
“When MSC asked me two years ago to be part of the Task Force,” said CIMMYT Director General Bram Govaerts, “I knew this was an important opportunity to shape the most important global conversation about security.”
Comprised of fifteen senior leaders from five continents across national security, government, development, multilateral, and private sector institutions, the Task Force called at a high-level event during the conference for food security to be elevated as a strategic global priority.
“When the Task Force first started,” Govaerts continued, “CIMMYT was working to rebuild agriculture and rural livelihoods in the middle of active conflict in Sudan, even as the war on Ukraine was sending shockwaves across global grain, fertilizer, and energy markets. We felt the urgency on the ground about the link between food and security.”
The Joint Statement warns that food insecurity, driven by conflict, climate shocks, economic pressures, and geopolitical tensions, is a major source of instability, displacement, and unrest. It underscores the well-established cycle in which conflict fuels hunger and hunger, in turn, fuels conflict.
The statement also highlights the growing weaponization of food, with agricultural systems, supply chains, and humanitarian access increasingly targeted in conflict settings. It calls on governments, international financial institutions, and the private sector to treat food systems as essential security infrastructure, on par with energy, water, and digital systems, requiring sustained investment, policy alignment, and crisis-prevention mechanisms.
As a global leader in agricultural research and innovation, CIMMYT contributes science-based solutions to strengthen seed systems, enhance climate resilience, and stabilize grain markets in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. Through partnerships across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, the organization works to ensure that agricultural systems can withstand shocks before they escalate into humanitarian or political crises.
The Task Force emphasized that preventing future crises requires proactive investment in resilient agricultural systems, early warning mechanisms, and cross-sector cooperation, before shocks escalate into humanitarian emergencies or political instability.
“Agriculture is strategic infrastructure,” said Govaerts, likening the global dialogue on food security to the Cold War era Track II diplomacy on nuclear weapons, “It offers an opportunity for all countries to come together over shared interests, no matter what else is happening in the world.”
Nahyane Bakkali
CIMMYT
n.bakkali@cgiar.org
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