AGRICULTURE
Food trade threat from global chokepoints
May 22, 2018 - Despite an ever-growing world population the numbers of undernourished are falling because of the ability to move food around the world. A recent report from Chatham House highlights the fact that these maritime trade routes are under strain and identifies chokepoints at which shipments are increasingly vulnerable.
In addition to the Suez canal and Strait of Bad al-Mandab (that control shipping between the Mediterranean, the Red sea and the Gulf of Aden), the Panama Canal is strategically positioned between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. inland waterways and the Brazil rail network to its ports are also chokepoints, as are the Dover Strait (the narrowest part of the English Channel separating Great Britain from continental Europe), the Strait of Gibraltar (between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean), the Turkish Straits, the Black Sea rail network and ports, the Strait of Hormuz (between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman) and the Strait of Malacca, a narrow stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.