Food Without Borders as The Global South’s Quiet Rebellion Against Import Dependence

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Forget faux beef and alt-dairy drops for a moment. The real food revolution is quietly unfolding across Ethiopia’s wheat plains, Zimbabwe’s resettled farmlands, and the Caribbean’s import-slashed shopping lists and none of it is coming from Silicon Valley or European biotech labs. It's seen as the global south's quiet rebellion.

Let’s start with Ethiopia, where Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has transformed over 3.6 million hectares of lowland into high-yield wheat fields in under four years. Once a heavy wheat importer, Ethiopia has not only met its domestic demand for the first time in decades, but it now exports to Kenya, Djibouti, and even Sudan. Wheat production jumped from 4.2 million tonnes in 2019 to a record-breaking 7.2 million tonnes last year. That’s not a lab-grown moonshot. That’s boots-on-the-ground agronomic strategy.

Source: PFN Ai Archives depicting African port workers with maize.

Then there’s CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, a regional bloc of 15 countries including Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados. Together they’ve made a firm commitment: slash food imports by 25% by 2025. Known as the “25 by 2025” strategy, it’s not about isolationism, it’s about regional resilience. Think, reviving intra-island trade routes, investing in local ag-tech, and turning food miles into food metres. It’s both a political and agricultural act of independence.

Meanwhile, AgroALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance’s agricultural wing, is being rebooted under Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Designed as a counterbalance to Western food systems and sanctions, AgroALBA links Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua in a food sovereignty initiative prioritising native crops, regional solidarity, and state-led agricultural planning. Call it what you like - cooperative socialism or strategic pragmatism - but it’s already producing localised food chains with reduced reliance on U.S.-led imports.

Even Morocco and Mauritania are making quiet waves, signing a deal to co-manage sustainable Atlantic fisheries. Not exactly a UN headline, but it signals a shift. Countries once dependent on external certification bodies are now writing their own rules for food security, ecosystem protection, and trade diplomacy.

Which begs the question: where are Australia and New Zealand in all this?

Two food-producing powerhouses with world-class biosecurity, advanced supply chains, and shared weather fluctuations, yet their agricultural relationship remains oddly transactional. A tighter AgAlliance between the two could reshape regional food resilience across the Indo-Pacific. Imagine a joint platform for drought-resistant crops, reciprocal food reserves, or coordinated low-carbon exports. If the Caribbean can collaborate across 700 islands, surely two nations separated by three hours and a rugby rivalry can get their food systems aligned?

However the fact is, the Global South isn’t waiting. It’s building new food futures, fast, sovereign, and borderless. The question now is whether Australasia will lead, follow, or miss the harvest altogether.

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