Predicting the differences in food security with and without the Russia–Ukraine conflict scenarios over different regions of the world

The Russia–Ukraine conflict has caused a global food security crisis, impacting sustainable development goals. Predicting the crisis’s impact on food security is crucial for global stability by 2030. From a macro-perspective, this paper constructs a food security evaluation indicator system and a food security composite index (FSCI), and using the autoregressive integrated moving average model to predict the variations in the FSCI for different regions of the world from 2023 to 2030 under scenarios with or without the “Russia–Ukraine conflict.” By quantitatively analyzing the differences in these variations, the potential impact of the conflict on regional food security is assessed. The results conclude that the global food security level progressively improved over the past 20 years. The FSCI in Europe, Latin America and Caribbean increased at a faster pace than the global average, with growth rates of 0.035/(10 years) and 0.034/(10 years), respectively. However, the FSCI in the Sub-Saharan Africa showed a declining trend. By 2030, it is expected that the Russia–Ukraine conflict will have a significant impact on the food security of Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, with a contribution of 1.49% and 0.29%, respectively. However, the impact of the conflict on food security levels in Asia and Latin America and Caribbean is relatively small. This study introduces a new quantitative method to assess and project the overall influence of the Russia–Ukraine conflict on food security. The findings contribute crucial scientific support for effectively evaluating and monitoring the sustainable development objectives related to global food security.