Discovering the maritime dependency of global food trade in food-deficit countries

IF 5.4 2区地球科学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Applied Geography Pub Date : 2025-09-03 DOI:10.1016/j.apgeog.2025.103769

Zhaoyou Yin , Pengjun Zhao , Yingnan Niu , Zhangyuan He

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Maritime transport plays a key role in global food trade. However, different countries and regions show a high variety in maritime dependency degree for their food trade. Understanding the variety is important for scholars, politicians and traders. Particularly, it is vital to national food security policy-making. This paper examines the changes of maritime dependency of global food trade in food-deficit countries during the period 2000–2020. We found maritime dependency of global food trade exhibits a hierarchical structure among transport corridors, characterized by a few high-tier main corridors carrying bulk flows and numerous mid- and low-tier corridors serving as regional support routes. The maritime dependency varies significantly between regions. Far East exhibiting highly concentrated routing, West Asia and East Africa relying on redundant corridor systems, and West Africa showing strong dependency on a small number of routes. It also varies by commodity, with soybeans showing the highest concentration and corn featuring more elastic routing. Interestingly, we found although the overall maritime dependency has shifted from concentration to diversification, the overlapping dependency in a few key maritime chokepoints increased. It means the vulnerability of global food shipping is increasing.

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发现缺粮国家对全球粮食贸易的海上依赖

海运在全球食品贸易中发挥着关键作用。然而，不同国家和地区对食品贸易的海洋依赖程度差异较大。对学者、政治家和商人来说，了解这种多样性很重要。特别是，它对国家粮食安全决策至关重要。本文考察了2000-2020年期间缺粮国对全球粮食贸易海上依赖的变化。研究发现，全球食品贸易的海上依存度在运输通道之间呈现层次结构，主要表现为少数高层主要通道承载大宗物流，而众多中层和低层通道作为区域支持通道。不同地区对海洋的依赖程度差别很大。远东地区航线高度集中，西亚和东非依赖于冗余的走廊系统，西非对少数航线的依赖程度较高。它也因商品而异，大豆表现出最高的浓度，玉米表现出更有弹性的路线。有趣的是，我们发现，尽管总体上的海洋依赖已经从集中化转向多样化，但在一些关键的海上瓶颈上，重叠依赖有所增加。这意味着全球食品运输的脆弱性正在增加。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Applied Geography GEOGRAPHY-

CiteScore

8.00

自引率

2.00%

发文量

134

期刊介绍： Applied Geography is a journal devoted to the publication of research which utilizes geographic approaches (human, physical, nature-society and GIScience) to resolve human problems that have a spatial dimension. These problems may be related to the assessment, management and allocation of the world physical and/or human resources. The underlying rationale of the journal is that only through a clear understanding of the relevant societal, physical, and coupled natural-humans systems can we resolve such problems. Papers are invited on any theme involving the application of geographical theory and methodology in the resolution of human problems.