Decades after governments dismantled food reserves and placed their faith in global trade, a growing number are rebuilding emergency stockpiles. Finland, long regarded as an outlier for maintaining extensive emergency reserves, is starting to look prescient. Photograph: Carlos Fabal/AFP via Getty ImagesFor much of the past three decades, public food reserves were in retreat in most of the world. Germany’s agriculture minister Alois Rainer said in August last year that Berlin was reviewing its long-standing emergency food reserves to include more ready-to-eat items such as canned ravioli. In Brazil, upon taking office in 2023 Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government began rebuilding public food stocks that had been dismantled under previous administrations.

Source: The Irish Times January 18, 2026 15:47 UTC