FOOD IMPORT DEPENDENCE AND EXTERNAL VULNERABILITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY

Food import dependence is usually reduced to a single percentage, yet its consequences for national food security depend on what is imported, from whom, and with what buffers. This paper asks how the form of external dependence, the channels through which shocks are transmitted, and the policy buffers in place compare across five contrasting economies: Japan, Egypt, Brazil, India and China. Using a qualitative-comparative design in the IMRAD format, it synthesises scholarly studies and institutional reports, compares one policy-relevant dependence indicator per country using the latest available figures (2022–2026), and codes the evidence against three dimensions (exposure, supplier concentration, buffer capacity) and four transmission channels (prices, external and fiscal position, input costs, trade policy). The evidence indicates that (i) each country is exposed through a different item: calories in Japan (about 62% imported on a calorie-supply basis, derived), wheat in Egypt (about 62% of use), edible oil in India (56%), soybeans in China (84%) and fertilizer in Brazil (85%); (ii) vulnerability is greatest where heavy dependence meets concentrated suppliers, as in Egypt and China; and (iii) Brazil shows that a leading exporter can be exposed through imported inputs. The paper concludes that national food security depends less on the headline level of import dependence than on its composition, supplier concentration and the buffers that absorb shocks, and it proposes a harmonised panel design for formal testing.