India urges UN to protect critical sea lanes for global food security
India has called on the international community to collectively safeguard critical sea lanes and maritime infrastructure, stating that secure and predictable shipping routes are essential to ensure the uninterrupted movement of food, fertilisers, fuel and other vital commodities amid conflicts and growing disruptions to global supply chains.
Speaking at a UN Security Council high-level open debate on Tuesday on the theme ‘Food Under Fire: The Security Council's Role in Mitigating Global and Local Food Crises’, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, said regional conflicts were increasingly producing consequences far beyond the immediate theatres of hostilities.
“Secure and predictable maritime trade routes are indispensable for the uninterrupted movement of food, fertilisers, fuel and other essential commodities,” Parvathaneni said, underscoring the need to preserve the safety and freedom of navigation for commercial shipping in accordance with international law.
The call comes as conflicts and attacks on key maritime routes continue to threaten global food and energy supplies. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Council that the Strait of Hormuz carries around a fifth of global oil supplies and a third of global fertiliser trade. “Restrictions and closures have driven up commodity prices, and made availability plummet. And attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea are further threatening supply chains for food and other commodities,” Guterres said.
Parvathaneni warned that disruptions to commercial shipping during conflicts could have cascading effects well beyond the affected region, with food-importing developing countries and humanitarian operations bearing a disproportionate burden. “The international community must therefore work collectively to safeguard critical sea lanes and maritime infrastructure, while ensuring that legitimate commercial trade and humanitarian shipments are able to proceed without undue impediment,” he said.
India said the immediate priority for the Security Council should be to reduce the humanitarian consequences of conflicts by facilitating safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access, supporting de-confliction arrangements where appropriate and ensuring that Council measures, including sanctions regimes, do not inadvertently obstruct humanitarian assistance or legitimate food and agricultural trade.
Parvathaneni also called for timely assessments of disruptions to critical supply chains covering food, fertiliser, fuel and humanitarian logistics, drawing on the expertise of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Food Programme and other relevant agencies. “Such assessments must remain objective, evidence-based and free from politicisation,” he said.
The Indian envoy said food insecurity was fundamentally a consequence of conflict, political instability and underdevelopment, rather than their root cause. He called for greater cooperation among member states, international financial institutions, regional organisations and development partners to strengthen domestic agricultural production, diversify supply chains and improve storage and logistics infrastructure.
“Predictable and affordable access to fertilisers, quality seeds, technology and concessional finance remains indispensable, particularly for developing countries. Open, transparent and rules-based trade in food and agricultural inputs also remains critical to global food security,” he said, while also cautioning against “over-reliance” on any single model of production, arguing that such dependence could leave food systems vulnerable to geopolitical disruptions, economic coercion and weaponisation.
