Scenarios 2027 / Scenarios
Rated at Standard Severe. Likelihood type: systemic. Source of scores: ginc-desk-v0.2.
The two breadbaskets fail in the same season: drought in one, floods at harvest in the other. Wheat and rice prices are up 80 per cent by the time the second crop report is published and the first exporter to ban shipments does so 'to protect domestic consumers'; four more follow within a month. Importing governments that hold 90 days of grain discover that the ships they had contracted have been resold. Bread prices rise 50 per cent in the cities that toppled governments over bread in 2011; subsidies that already cost 2 per cent of GDP double. Upstream, a government opens and closes the gates on a shared river to the schedule of its own farmers and tells its neighbour to take the matter to a treaty body it has suspended. Fertiliser is the second wave: the energy shock has closed ammonia plants and the next planting season starts short. Humanitarian appeals are funded at a third. The nations that come through are the ones with reserves of the right grains in the right places, functioning safety nets and farmers who could switch crops in a season.
The dateline is illustrative, not a forecast. The narrative is hypothetical; the historical anchors below are real events.
Simultaneous crop failures in two major exporting regions, compounded by export bans, double staple prices for two seasons; or an upstream state restricts a shared river. v0.2 split this from the climate scenario because the Lloyd's food and water shock (US$5 trillion over five years) and Eurasia Group's 2026 'water weapon' show it as a distinct systemic risk, and because India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty in April 2025 made water a live instrument.
| Event | Date | What happened | Calibrates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Sea grain disruption | 2022 | Wheat and sunflower exports from Ukraine blocked; prices spiked; the grain corridor restored partial flows | export shock |
| India rice export ban | July 2023 | Non-basmati white rice exports banned; global rice prices at 15-year highs | export bans by major exporters |
| Russian wheat export ban | 2010 | Drought-driven ban; prices rose ahead of the 2011 unrest | food–politics channel |
| Indus Waters Treaty suspension | 23 April 2025 | India placed the treaty in abeyance after the Pahalgam attack | water weaponisation |
| Panama Canal drought | 2023–2024 | Transits restricted by low reservoir levels | water–trade channel |
| Cape Town 'Day Zero' | 2018 | City-scale water rationing narrowly averted | urban water failure |
| Lloyd's food and water shock scenario | October 2023 | Five-year global loss US$5 trillion; Greater China and Asia Pacific most exposed; the Caribbean losing 19 per cent of GDP | systemic impact |
Shown at their preset values. Parameters are not adjustable in this release and nothing on this page is computed from them. Custom settings run (Phase B) but are labelled 'non-standard run' and excluded from comparisons.
| Parameter | Default | Range or options | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breadbaskets failing | 2 | 1–3 | — |
| Export bans by major exporters | yes | — | — |
| Staple price multiple | ×1.8 | ×1.3 to ×3 | — |
| Water weaponisation | one basin | options: none / multiple | — |
| Duration | two seasons | 1–4 | — |
| Fertiliser disruption | partial | — | Coupled to S09 |
High: capability band shifts expected under current plans. Medium: band shifts under 'none' policy response only. Low: strain without band shift. Loads are judgement-based until the Atlas connects. Domains link to the Atlas.
| Domain | Load | Channel |
|---|---|---|
| Hard | ||
| Defence and security | Medium | water-dispute escalation; unrest |
| Strategic infrastructure | Medium | storage, irrigation, water treatment, ports |
| Critical technology | Low | agritech and forecasting |
| Soft | ||
| Government effectiveness | High | reserves, safety nets, price policy, treaty diplomacy |
| Human capital | High | nutrition, child health, schooling |
| Influence and cohesion | High | urban unrest, regional relations |
| Economic | ||
| Macro-financial | Medium | subsidies, current account, inflation |
| Industry, trade and supply | High | import logistics, agricultural output |
| Energy and resources | High | water, land, fertiliser |
| Region | Exposure | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| North America | Low | Exporter |
| Europe | Low | Medium for water stress in the south |
| China | Medium | Imports of soy, feed; water stress in the north |
| Indo-Pacific | Medium | Rice importers; Pacific islands |
| South Asia | High | Indus and Ganges–Brahmaputra basins; rice and wheat |
| Gulf and Middle East | High | Import dependence above 80 per cent for staples; Nile, Tigris–Euphrates |
| Africa | High | Sahel, Horn, Nile; fertiliser |
| Latin America and Caribbean | Medium | Caribbean import dependence; Central American dry corridor |
| Russia and Eurasia | Medium | Central Asian water; exporter windfalls |
| Indicator | Source | Threshold |
|---|---|---|
| FAO Food Price Index | — | — |
| Stocks-to-use ratios | USDA, AMIS | — |
| Export restriction tracker | IFPRI | — |
| FEWS NET and IPC phase classifications | — | — |
| Reservoir levels and SPEI drought index | — | — |
| Fertiliser prices | — | — |
| Transboundary basin incident reports | — | — |
| Food subsidy budgets | — | — |
From the GINC 250: trends rated Very high or Critical for this scenario. All S11 trend scores.
| Rating | Band or level | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Likelihood, two years | 3Possible | A two-breadbasket failure with bans is rarer than single-country shocks; 2022–2023 came close on rice and wheat. |
| Likelihood, ten years | 4Likely | Under climate change. |
| Systemic impact | 3Significant | On Lloyd's estimate. |
| National impact | 5Catastrophic | For import-dependent low-income states. |
| Confidence | medium | Climate attribution and policy responses are uncertain. |
Source of scores: ginc-desk-v0.2. Confidence refers to the rating, not the scenario. Calibration sources are listed with the anchors above and on the methodology page.
Contested assumptions for the panel to resolve.
No signed commentary in this build.
0.2.0 · active0.2.0 · 2 October 2026 · Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores.GINC (2027). Scenario S11 Food and water system shock, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/food-water-system-shockContent and data are published under CC BY 4.0.