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Agriculture
Innovation or Insecurity? How Agricultural Innovation Drives Affordable Food Production
Food prices have been climbing faster than overall living costs, putting pressure on households and farmers alike. Ensuring affordable food production depends on a strong, reliable supply that can withstand shocks from extreme weather, increasing pest pressure, trade disruption, and changing regulations. Agricultural innovation strengthens food security by helping farmers boost productivity, resilience, and efficiency. From improved seeds to digital farming tools, new solutions are critical to keeping food both accessible and affordable.
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If you filled a grocery cart with household staples - rice, wheat, corn, sugar, oils, meat, and dairy - the total cost of that cart has been climbing faster than the overall cost of living since 20201. Consumers everywhere are feeling the strain on their budget, with food inflation now ranking among the top global worries2. The result: a growing sense of uncertainty3.
While food prices depend on many economic and environmental factors, having a robust and reliable food supply chain is a critical part of keeping food both accessible and affordable. Innovations in agriculture play a role in keeping food flowing, supporting farmers to become more productive and resilient as they carry out the biggest job on Earth.
The forces that shape food prices are deeply interconnected, and many directly impact farmers’ ability to maintain productivity and resilience.
The Entangled Roots of Food Prices
Food prices are rarely driven by a single factor. In both the United States and Europe, a major driver of a recent surge in retail food prices was the rising cost of global grains like wheat and corn4, costs amplified by extreme weather, trade disruptions, and geopolitical tensions.
Many interconnected forces shape food prices, including:
- Climate and extreme weather - heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires, all have the potential to disrupt yields and supply, threatening food security.
- Trade disruptions - tariffs, export bans, and shifting agreements that upend supply chains.
- Regulatory changes - new restrictions on crop protection technologies, leaving fewer options for farmers.
- Land scarcity - agricultural production is directly affected by the limited availability of fertile land and soil quality.
The agricultural industry cannot control trade policy, geopolitics, or global markets. But it can influence a critical part of the equation: productivity. Agricultural productivity is the cornerstone of food security. From there, prices rise or fall with the wider forces of policy, trade, and climate. But lower food prices should never come at the expense of fair prices for farmers’ production — innovation must support both resilient harvests and viable farm businesses.
Real-World Food System Disruptions
Today, these pressures create one of the most unpredictable environments agriculture has faced in decades, marked by tighter farm margins, greater production risks, rising grocery bills, and uncertainty about whether food will remain reliably available and prices within reach.
Innovation That Meets the Moment
The pressures driving food prices higher today call for new solutions. And research is already delivering them: seed genetics to better cope with weather extremes, agricultural chemistries to defend against emerging pests, precision agricultural tools, biologicals, and digital platforms that help farmers do more with less.
We need to embrace innovation, and I don't just mean innovation in terms of gene editing and new technologies. Innovation can come in the form of crop practices and management practices, as well as regenerative and other approaches.”
BASF Agricultural Solutions invests around €1 billion annually in agricultural R&D, providing farmers with solutions for crop protection, seeds and traits, and digital insights. “These are scientifically proven, practical innovations giving farmers the ability to produce safe and affordable food”, says Livio Tedeschi, President, BASF Agricultural Solutions. “That’s how innovative solutions contribute to climate-resilient farming and food availability”.
Innovations Support Productivity, the Cornerstone of Food Security
- Weather resilience technologies like InVigor® Gold delivers heat tolerance and yield stability that will allow these hybrids to grow in hotter and drier environments, outyielded the traditional canola by 8%. SoyTechTM 616 soybean cultivars available to Brazilian farmers are more resistant to high temperatures and water stress.
- Pest defense through the NemasphereTM trait boosts soybean yield potential by 8% by protecting against soybean cyst nematode (SCN), the number one yield-robbing pest in soybeans in the United States. Durilon® Insecticide, powered by Axalion® Active, is designed to safeguard field crops such as cereals, oilseeds and beets from piercing and sucking pests in various countries in Europe.
- Sustainable productivity through digital platforms like xarvio® in Brazil and Argentina, enabling a “more with less” approach that helps farmers optimize inputs, reduce impact, and meet sustainability requirements while maintaining strong yields. Luximo® Active herbicide plays a key role in sustaining wheat and a range of cereal crops, like rice, especially in regions where weed and grass management is increasingly difficult due to regulatory pressure.
No single technology, company, or region can secure the food supply alone - but by accelerating agricultural innovation and ensuring solutions reach farmers in developing regions as well as advanced markets, increased agricultural productivity supports a robust food supply.
Investing in Innovation for Global Food Security
Today’s volatility may feel unprecedented, but agriculture has consistently adapted to disruption. In the 1960s and 70s, farmers adopted high-yield crop varieties and mechanized practices that transformed food production in regions like South Asia and Latin America.
“If we were farming today with 1960s technology, we would require 1 billion additional hectares of land, which is more than a quarter of all the forest on the planet,” notes Jack Bobo.
It is estimated that without these innovations from the now named “Green Revolution” in agriculture that global food and feed prices would be 35–65% higher.5
Investing in agricultural innovation is one of the most effective strategies to address food insecurity and drive economic resilience. Every euro allocated delivers outsized returns—strengthening rural economies, stabilizing food markets, and enhancing food affordability.”
R&D investment in innovation influences food prices within the broader food system.
The United Nation’s 2025 State of Food Insecurity (SOFI) report puts the role of R&D investment into perspective: “Reducing the probability of future food price inflation events requires sustained investment in agriculture - including research and development, trade routes, and storage - to improve market access, strengthen food system resilience, and enhance productivity sustainably.”
When Supply is Strong, Food Becomes More Affordable
Agricultural innovation cannot eliminate volatility, but it helps secure supply. And when supply is strong, food becomes more affordable. That is where investment in resilient crops, digital farming tools, and sustainable productivity makes a difference: not by controlling markets, but by supporting farmers to feed more people, more reliably.
“Food production has increased faster than population growth,” says Jack Bobo. Although many regions, particularly in the developing world, still face serious barriers that make access and affordability a persistent challenge, there is progress. “What we see as a challenge is actually an indication of things moving in the right direction.”
Footnotes & References
- “Global food price inflation has significantly outpaced headline inflation since 2020.” SOFI REPORT | United Nations
- In the IPSOS “What worries the world survey”, asking 20,000 participants in 29 countries, inflation was one of the top three concerns among 33 percent of participants in July 2024. What Worries the World – July 2024 | Ipsos
- “Today, the world has reopened, but the era of uncertainty and its impact on consumers linger.” State of the Consumer trends report 2025 | McKinsey
- “The rise in global agricultural and energy commodity prices and the associated effects explain 47 and 35 percent of food price inflation at its peak in the United States of America and the euro area, respectively.” SOFI REPORT | United Nations
- “Widespread adoption of GR technologies led to a significant shift in the food supply function, contributing to a fall in real food prices” Green Revolution: Impacts, limits, and the path ahead | PNAS
Published October 5, 2025 by Katie Lelito and Annegret Liebscht (BASF Agricultural Solutions). For media inquiries or to repurpose the story, please contact: Julian Prade
