Food as a weapon: despite the agreement, supply can be paralyzed at any moment

In recent decades, the uninterrupted global trade has faced new challenges due to escalating armed conflicts, which increasingly question the safety of goods transportation, including food. As Resperger István, the head of the MATE Security Research Center, pointed out in an episode of the Alapvetés podcast, this has turned food into a strategic tool, and a particular conflict can cause severe supply problems in large areas. Another serious problem is that production cannot immediately resume even after a ceasefire or peace, as millions of mines and kilometers of fiber optic cables remain in the fields after the fighting. As Resperger István emphasized, for example, in Ukraine, there are about 20-21 million unexploded mines on an area about twice the size of Hungary. Perhaps we remember the 1999 Kosovo conflict: the area is barely larger than Bács-Kiskun County, but we have been clearing mines since then. Consider how long it will take to clear them here. And there is another ...