Global food security is at its most perilous point in years as the conflict in Iran threatens to trigger a new food shock, the United Nations warned on Friday.

Around 266 million people faced “acute food insecurity” in 2025, only a marginal improvement on the previous year, according to the UN’s latest annual Global Report on Food Crises.

That fragile position will worsen as the Gulf war, now entering its eighth week, continues to disrupt energy and fertiliser markets, experts warn.

Rising gas costs have already squeezed fertiliser production, while farmers battle rising fuel and commodity prices, with the sharpest impact likely to fall on poorer, import-dependent nations.

Máximo Torero, Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), warned that the global food market is facing a massive supply shock that could last into early next year.

“The clock keeps ticking … the crop calendar is based on the climate and biological conditions of the countries. That we cannot change,” Mr Torrero told The Telegraph.

“If the inputs keep going up, [farmers] will plant less and yields will be lower for the next half of the season,” Mr Torrero said. “In Asia, we are already seeing increasing food inflation and commodity prices”.

Major producers, including Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Brazil, Sudan, and Kenya, are now entering critical planting cycles as energy and fertiliser costs soar.

As the season shifts towards the Northern Hemisphere in May, the window to secure the 2026 harvest is rapidly closing.

Last year, ten countries accounted for two-thirds of all people facing acute food insecurity globally, said the UN.

Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan alone represent nearly one-third of the total, according to the report.

Afghanistan, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen experienced the worst food crises, both in terms of the share and absolute number of people facing acute food insecurity.

More than 80 per cent of those affected live in countries affected by conflict.

An estimated 35.5 million children were acutely malnourished across the surveyed countries, including just under 10 million with severe acute malnutrition.

For many, the damage will be irreversible.

Children who survive acute malnutrition, often suffer permanent “stunting” – lifelong cognitive and physical damage.

Famine was last year confirmed in two areas – parts of the Gaza Strip and in Sudan – marking a first since records began, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the UN-backed global hunger monitor.

Improvements were reported in Bangladesh, Niger, parts of Nigeria and Sudan, and the Syrian Arab Republic, the report said.

In Afghanistan, the DRC, Myanmar and Zimbabwe conditions worsened.

A risk of famine remains in parts of Sudan and South Sudan, says the UN.

The economic shock triggered by the Iran war is already baked in for the year ahead as regards food security, according to new analysis from one major aid group.

Shortages and high prices are already shaping farming decisions for 2026 and 2027, Mercy Corps said.

Rising costs of fuel and fertiliser mean farmers have already been forced to plant less than they wanted, with knock-on effects on prices for harvests to come.

Melaku Yirga, the aid group’s vice-president for Africa, said: “The food security consequences of this war are already written into harvests that have not yet been planted.

“Even if prices were to stabilise tomorrow, the most important agricultural decisions have already been made.”

The UN concurred: “I hate being alarmist, but I think the situation is getting to a critical level right now,” said Mr Torrero.

“Every day matters… if we go through 60 days, 70 days – for sure, we will have a significant problem in the second half of the year, and next year”.

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