Agriculture players, food security, trends 2024 to 2026, and how to crack the cases
Who the players are by region, food security in the Gulf, the 2026 fertilizer shock, regulation basics, prompts, traps and drills.
Industry brief, with a one-minute summary: Agriculture and foodFirm processes and online tests change from year to year and differ by office. Use this to prepare, and confirm the exact current steps on the firm's own careers page.
Key takeaways
- Agriculture cases usually ask how to raise farmer income, how to secure a country's food supply, whether to invest in a food business, or how to cut losses in the chain.
- Common traps: Assuming yields can rise without extra inputs, water or knowledge.
- Price support and procurement: for example minimum support prices in India, and farm subsidies such as the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.
- Input subsidies: many countries subsidize fertilizer; in India this is a large part of public spending on agriculture.
- Trade rules: import tariffs, quotas, and at times export bans or limits when governments want to keep food at home, as India did with some rice exports in 2023.
Key idea
Agriculture cases usually ask how to raise farmer income, how to secure a country's food supply, whether to invest in a food business, or how to cut losses in the chain. Start with the unit that matters (the hectare, the tonne, or the country), then yield, price, cost and loss.
| Segment | Examples |
|---|---|
| Global grain and oilseed traders | ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, COFCO (China) |
| Singapore-based agribusiness | Olam, Wilmar |
| Seeds and crop protection | Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta, UPL (India) |
| Fertilizer | Nutrien, Yara, Mosaic, OCP (Morocco), Ma'aden (Saudi Arabia), IFFCO (India, cooperative) |
| Machinery | Deere, CNH, Kubota, Mahindra and Mahindra (India, tractors) |
| Gulf food companies and investors | Almarai (Saudi Arabia), Agthia (UAE), SALIC (Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company) |
| India food and dairy | Amul (cooperative), ITC, many regional processors |
So-what
Many parts of the chain are concentrated in a few large companies (traders, seeds, fertilizer), while farming itself is spread over hundreds of millions of farms.
Food security in the Gulf
Food security means reliable access to enough safe, nutritious food. Gulf countries have little farmland and water, so they import most staple foods. Arab News reported in 2026 that Gulf countries import between 70 and 90 percent of their staple foods. Their strategies usually combine four tools: strategic reserves of staples, diverse import sources and routes, investment in farms and food companies abroad, and local production where water use is low, such as greenhouses, vertical farms, poultry and dairy. Saudi Arabia, for example, reduced water-intensive wheat and fodder farming to protect groundwater.
Trends 2024 to 2026 (checked 28 September 2026)
- Hunger: the UN's State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026 (SOFI) estimated that about 645 million people faced hunger in 2025, 7.8 percent of the world's population, the third year in a row of progress. In Africa the share of people facing hunger edged down to about 20 percent, but about 309 million people there remain undernourished (FAO).
- Fertilizer shock: after shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was severely restricted from 28 February 2026, urea prices rose to above USD 850 per tonne in April 2026, up about 80 percent since February and the highest since April 2022, according to the World Bank. The WTO reported in July 2026 that trade in urea and phosphate fertilizers was severely disrupted, and that urea had fallen back to about USD 450 per tonne by June, close to its level before the conflict. The Middle East supplies nearly a quarter of global urea exports (World Bank), so farmers in India, Africa and elsewhere faced higher input costs.
- Gulf supply routes: Arab News reported in June 2026 that some food flows to the Gulf were rerouted through Omani ports outside the strait, such as Salalah and Duqm, and through overland corridors via Saudi Arabia.
- Food prices: the FAO Food Price Index averaged 133.3 points in August 2026, up 1.9 percent from July and 2.5 percent from a year earlier, but about 17 percent below its March 2022 peak (FAO, 4 September 2026). Check the latest monthly reading before an interview.
- Climate: heat, drought and floods increasingly affect yields, which pushes investment in drought-tolerant seeds, irrigation and crop insurance.
Regulation basics
- Price support and procurement: for example minimum support prices in India, and farm subsidies such as the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.
- Input subsidies: many countries subsidize fertilizer; in India this is a large part of public spending on agriculture.
- Trade rules: import tariffs, quotas, and at times export bans or limits when governments want to keep food at home, as India did with some rice exports in 2023.
- Food safety and standards: national food safety agencies, labeling rules, and import rules such as halal certification in the Gulf.
- Land and water: rules on who can own or lease farmland, and on how much groundwater can be used.
Typical case prompts and how to crack them
| Prompt | Structure hint | First driver to check |
|---|---|---|
| How can a state in India double smallholder farmer income? | Income = yield x price x hectares minus cost; plus other income (livestock, second crop) | Yield gap for the main crops |
| How should a Gulf country secure its food supply? | Demand by food group; sources: local, reserves, imports by route, overseas investment; cost and risk of each | Which foods are most import-dependent and through which routes |
| Should an investor build a dairy farm in Saudi Arabia? | Market, cost per litre (feed, water, energy), competition, regulation on water use | Feed and water cost per litre compared with imports |
| A food processor in Nigeria has low margins | Margin = product price minus raw material and processing cost; utilization; losses | Raw material cost and capacity utilization |
| Should a fertilizer company expand in Africa? | Market entry: demand drivers, farmer affordability, distribution, local production versus imports | Farmer affordability and the distribution network |
So-what
Agriculture cases often have a social goal (farmer income, food security) as well as profit. Name both in your structure.
Assuming yields can rise without extra inputs, water or knowledge. Forgetting post-harvest losses. Treating harvest-time prices as the yearly average. Ignoring weather and price risk. Recommending water-intensive crops in water-scarce countries. Forgetting that smallholders need credit, storage and market access, not only better seeds. Treating food security as only a production problem instead of also a trade, storage and route problem.
Government and economic development; Public, social, and non-profit cases; Capacity, supply chain, and footprint; Market entry; Sustainability and decarbonization.
A maize farmer in Zambia uses 200 kg of urea per hectare. Urea rises from USD 400 to USD 850 per tonne (illustrative prices). By how much does the fertilizer cost per hectare rise, in USD?
A government asks: "Our farmers earn too little. What should we do first?" Which first split is best?
What is a yield gap?
Why did a disruption at the Strait of Hormuz in 2026 raise costs for farmers in India and Africa?
Which is usually NOT a core tool in a Gulf food security strategy?
Sources for this lesson (6)
- FAO, "SOFI 2026: hunger not inevitable", July 2026
- FAO Food Price Index
- World Bank Blogs, "Fertilizer prices surge as Strait of Hormuz disruptions tighten supplies"
- WTO Data Blog, "Fertilizer trade impacted by Strait of Hormuz conflict", 10 July 2026
- Arab News, "Clock ticking as Hormuz standoff threatens Gulf's food supply"
- Government of India, Agriculture Census
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