Food security beyond borders: how crop imports affect drought risk of conflict-affected countries

Drought events can disrupt food security and increase the risk of violent conflicts. In an interconnected global food system, countries rely on both local food production and imports to meet domestic demand. When assessing the impact of drought risk on national food security, however, imported crops are often overlooked. This study incorporates international crop trade information to understand the role of crop imports in the drought risk profile of countries. We focus on conflict-affected countries due to their reliance on food imports, and particular vulnerability to the impacts of drought events and their corresponding cascading effects. We develop a framework to quantify drought risk associated with domestic production and imports of crops (i.e. composite drought risk) by combining gridded drought risk data with crop production and trade for 23 countries. Our findings show that most conflict-affected countries face drought risk primarily through domestic production, as most consumed calories are produced locally. Nevertheless, including crop imports alters the composite drought risk profiles considerably (>10%) in 14 countries, with Middle Eastern and North African countries showing 40-50% reduction. Crop imports also introduce an additional source of high drought risk, accounting for over 10% of high drought risk in 18 countries and amounting to 90% in some cases. Furthermore, we identify critical trade connections that expose countries to concentrated drought risks from specific trading partners. We demonstrate the need to incorporate both domestic and import-related drought risks in food security assessments, and we suggest potential strategies based on countries’ composite drought risk profiles for drought resilient food security.