Spotlight Podcast: Global Food Bowl

Executive summary

Welcome to the Spotlight podcast, a series of conversations with risk specialists both within and external to the Gallagher business.

The series takes our subject matter experts on a deep dive into the many themes covered in the Spotlight thought leadership series.

In this third episode, our host Helen Yates talks about sources of disruption to global food production and the role of insurance with Tina Tomson, Gallagher Re's global head of Research and head of International Catastrophe Analytics; Shilpa Pankaj, head of Agriculture, International at Gallagher Re; and Steve Bowen, chief science officer at Gallagher Re. It follows on from two Spotlight reports focused on the global food bowl, which consider the impact of climate change and differing risk scenarios on agriculture and food production supply chains.

In this podcast discussion, Tina, Shilpa and Steve offer their thoughts on the interconnected nature of exposures facing the sector and how risk mitigation and insurance can play a role in reducing volatility.

Insights

• Climate extremes, natural catastrophes, the global pandemic and geopolitics have caused recent turmoil in global markets, resulting in volatility to commodity prices.
• The turmoil is compounded by macro trends such as population growth and urbanization.
• With the Suez Canal handling around 12% to 15% of global trade in 2023, recent attacks in the Red Sea are bringing additional disruption to supply chains.
• The insurance industry is at the forefront of providing alternative risk financing solutions and actively engaging with government bodies to address gaps in protection.
• Data and analytics play a big role, with index-based micro-insurance solutions and sovereign risk pools structured around pre-agreed parameters, such as rainfall and heat.