Does your country have enough food reserves to withstand a crisis?

Workers unload wheat at the Banha grain silos, in Qalyubia Governorate, Egypt, May 25, 2022. Egypt, the largest importer of wheat in the world, has been forced by the war in Ukraine to radically change its strategy and rely more on the local harvest of the cereal as a way to reduce its external dependence. EPA/KHALED ELFIQI

Despite the increasing risks of war, unpredictable weather and economic shocks to food security, only 30 countries are actively using grain reserves. Switzerland is one of them. 

After a few bad harvest years due to low rainfall, Iraq now has sufficient wheat reserves. The country’s grain reserves sit at 5.5 million tonnes and are enough to supply the domestic market for a year. However, the country has a weak spot: it still imports wheat flour costing about $750 million (CHF600 million) a year as it lacks enough silos and mills to store and process its wheat. This is something the Iraqi government wants to remedy.  

On June 19, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani inaugurated a flour mill project of the Etihad Group in the central Babil province that will produce one million tonnes of premium flour every year – half the country’s demand.  

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani inaugurating the Etihad Group flour mill in the central Babil on June 19, 2025. Etihad Group

The mill houses six flour production lines sourced from Swiss technology company Bühler. The food-processing giant manufactures machinery to process grains, pulses, cocoa and coffee consumed by two billion people every day. Bühler is seeing a rising demand for a food safety net everywhere but particularly in the Middle East and Africa. 

“Milling Solutions, the largest business area of Bühler, experienced double-digit turnover growth (CHF725 million, $910 million, +17.1%) to a record high due to global demand for large grain processing projects, including many greenfield installations,” says Bühler’s annual report for 2024.  

In the past two years alone, the Swiss company secured more than 150 wheat milling projects that add up to 30,000 tonnes of grinding capacity per day – enough to feed 60 million people.  

“There are several factors coming together now. Firstly, there is a rapidly growing population in countries like Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia, and their governments need to somehow feed their citizens,” Thomas Widmer, head of Bühler’s grain handling business unit told Swissinfo. “The second factor that sped up demand for our products was world events like the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war and the Suez Canal being blocked by the container ship Ever Given for six days.”  

A satellite image shows multiple tug boats positioned alongside the ‘Ever Given’ and dredging operations in progress, in the Suez Canal, Egypt, March 27, 2021. EPA/MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES

Spanning 400 metres and weighing 220,000 tonnes, the Ever Given is one of the largest container ships in the world. On March 23, 2021, the hulking vessel operated by a Taiwanese company ran aground owing to strong winds from a dust storm and wedged itself in a narrow part of the Suez Canal, completely blocking the waterway. In the six days it took to re-float the ship, disruption to Suez Canal traffic directly affected 0.3% of global merchandise trade.   

Vulnerable supply chains 

According to British thinktank Chatham House, about 15% of the global grain trade passes through the Suez Canal. Dependence on such “global maritime choke points” is making food supply chains more vulnerable. 

“Traffic through the Panama and Suez Canals – critical arteries of global trade – dropped by over 50% by mid-2024, compared to their peaks. This decline was driven by climate-induced low water levels in the Panama Canal and the outbreak of conflict in the Red Sea region affecting the Suez Canal,” states a reportExternal link from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 

Getting the right quantities of food to the right places at the right time is becoming more complicated. To deal with uncertainties, strategic gain reserves (SGRs) are becoming more vital for food security, according to a recent reportExternal link jointly published by the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN World Food Programme in April.

Strategic grain reserves are defined as “publicly owned inventories of food grains held in anticipation of episodes of acute food insecurity caused by trade and supply-chain disruptions”. They can be used to augment food supplies on the market during short-term trade and supply-chain disruptions. SGRs can also be a precautionary source of grain for food assistance programmes during market disruptions and take the form of public distribution stocks or emergency food stocks.  

Even wealthy countries started showing interest in SGRs after their consumers battled higher food prices at the start of the Ukraine war. Norway, which ended grain storage stocks in 2005, started stockpiling 30,000 tonnes of grain for 2024 and 2025. It will spend 63 million kroner (CHF5 million) annually on grain stockpiling for its 5.6 million inhabitants via contracts signed with private companies. 

“We now see a lot of political and strategic activities to once again build up strategic grain reserves around the world,” says Widmer. 

Switzerland has been maintaining compulsory food stocks since the Cold War. At any point in time, the country must have a stockpile of three to four months of bread wheat, durum wheat, rice, sugar, cooking oils and fats, and even coffee. Around 100 companies such as flour mills are compensated for holding the stocks that cost CHF7 a year per resident.  

Other wealthy countries with strategic food reserves are South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia. But the majority of the 30 nations with active public food stocks are lower-middle-income countries that are reliant on imports of staples such as wheat. The share of food in household expenditure can vary from about 20% in Indonesia to over 50% in Ghana.  

Preparing for the worst  

“All countries have some food reserves and even places like Yemen will have some. Then it is a question of who is taking care of those stocks and who will have access,” says Monika Tothova, senior economist in the FAO trade and markets division.  

According to Tothova, strategic grain reserves are not a mechanism to keep food prices in check or feed everyone during an emergency. Instead, they are usually meant to be small and serve a small section of the population for a limited period.  

“If you are some rich Gulf country, you can probably cover everybody with your strategic reserves,” she says. “But for poorer countries strategic reserves are small, and if you really have an emergency, you can release these stocks to the neediest of the population.” 

Maintaining food reserves is costly and logistically complex. Large quantities must be procured, stored securely and protected over long periods. Grain, for example, can be stored for decades if handled correctly, as it does not have a fixed shelf life. However, poor storage conditions can lead to infestations – mice, insects and moisture can compromise the stock over time, leading to significant losses.   

Quality control of stored grains being done in silo 2 of Rhenus Logistics in Basel. It is one of about 100 firms responsible for storing Swiss compulsory food stocks. Keystone / Georgios Kefalas

In 2024, Switzerland spent CHF60.3 million in payments to private companies to store compulsory stocks. Other countries may choose to invest in storage and milling facilities themselves either to reduce costs or due to a lack of private sector partners. Companies such as Bühler that supply this kind of solution must adapt their offerings to local conditions to win government contracts.  

“A government-run silo or flour mill operates differently from a specialised private company serving a niche market. This is partly because the type of flour produced is shaped by local dietary habits – flour is not a standardised product globally, as eating preferences vary widely from one region to another,” says Widmer of Bühler. 

It can take Bühler 12-18 months to set up a state-of-the-art storage and milling facility, depending on whether the site has already been prepared in advance.  

“What they all have in common is that once a decision is made to invest in infrastructure, then it needs to be built fast, be up and running quickly and then really be profitable as soon as possible,” Widmer adds.  

A hangar used to store grain stands damaged after a rocket attack in Pisochyn, near Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, February 26, 2024. EPA/YAKIV LIASHENKO

What about countries that don’t have any active strategic food reserves? Tothova from the FAO strongly recommends diversifying import sources. According to the latest biannual FAO Food OutlookExternal link report of June 2025, 40 net importers of wheat depended on Russia and Ukraine for 30% of their wheat import needs in 2021. In 2024, 40 net importers of wheat were dependent on the two warring countries for 49% of their wheat import needs. For example, Armenia, Georgia and Mongolia were completely dependent on Russian imports while Turkey, Pakistan and Israel sourced almost all their wheat from Ukraine and Russia.  

“Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket because that’s what happened in 2022. After the war started in Ukraine, countries started panicking about where they were going to get their supplies from,” says Tothova.  

Edited by Virginie Mangin/ts