As conflict in the Middle East and supply chain disruptions persist, concerns are growing about the long-term resilience of agrifood supply chains and food security risks for developing economies across the globe, including in large parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, according to a report from commodity intelligence platform provider Helios AI.
Helios AI developed the Hunger Exposure Index (HEI) to unpack food security vulnerabilities, providing a 0 to 100 score rating, with countries scoring above 70 signifying that the country is critically exposed, and between 50 and 69 showing an elevated risk of hunger.
The AI company factors in climate risk, fertilizer and energy exposure from the Persian Gulf, foreign exchange constraints, and cereal import dependence into this rating.
Despite record-breaking levels of food production, many countries face food insecurity and hunger issues due to a lack of import cover — how many months a country can pay for imports through foreign exchange reserves.
While a country might be better off from an overall food security perspective, it does not mean that it cannot face short-term volatility from domestic issues, Francisco Martin-Rayo, co-founder and CEO at Helios AI, told AgNavigator.
“Nigeria, as an example, is a country that is not in our HEI in a critical condition, and we’ve had pushback to say, ‘well, Nigeria is having food issues,’ but it’s due to conflict, domestic instability. When you look at some of the variables that we put into our index, for example, [Nigeria has] over seven months of import cover, and they export fertilizer, and they produce a lot of their domestic consumption. And so, it actually puts them in a much better place than for example, Sudan, Malawi or Zimbabwe, where you don’t have that import cover,” Martin-Rayo said.
Will the Strait of Hormuz bill come due in 2027?
As fertilizer and fuel disruptions continue amid Middle East tensions, food inflation has not risen by double digits as Helios AI predicted. The consumer price index rose to 3.4% in August 2026, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
With an approximate 92% market-prediction accuracy rate, Helios AI has been open about its incorrect predictions and gives credit to the global agri-food system in reacting to Strait of Hormuz disruptions quickly, Martin-Rayo said.
“When we looked back at our analysis, I give the world an enormous amount of credit for reacting to this crisis the way they did, and we really benefited from record production in Brazil, especially with the safrinha [corn] crop. The Chinese opened up their nitrogen export taps. Saudi Arabia was able to start exporting or importing as well from the Red Sea,” he elaborated.
Countries were able to use these one-off mitigants in 2026 to respond to the Strait of Hormuz disruptions, but many won’t be able to use them indefinitely, Martin-Rayo noted. This creates challenges for 2027, especially the countries most exposed to hunger, he added.
Additionally, the El Niño will impact regions differently, leading to droughts in Africa but could lead to more rain in parts of Brazil and a yield bump in those regions.
“What we worry about in 2027, our expectation is that you’ll still have full supermarkets, but just fewer and fewer people who are able to afford the things inside that supermarket. … There’s 130 million people across the six critical countries in the HEI that will be impacted,” he elaborated.
Looking ahead, Helios AI will use a $3 million investment from W23 Global, a venture fund supported by Ahold Delhaize, Empire Company Limited, Tesco, Shoprite Group, and Woolworths Group to expand its capabilities and continue the company’s growth trajectory.
