As of 2010, the world population was 6.9 billion, and by 2020 it’s projected to reach 7.72 billion. That’s a lot of mouths to feed with fewer farmers to raise crops. What would happen to the global food supply system if there was a sudden shock, such as a catastrophic weather event?

To assess the potential risks to the world’s food supply, Lloyd’s asked food security and sustainable development experts to develop a scenario describing a plausible, relatively severe production shock affecting multiple agricultural commodities and regions, and to describe the domino effect that could result.

Lloyd’s researchers began with the premise that global demand for food is rising, driven by unprecedented growth in the world’s population and shifts in consumption as countries move from agrarian to industrial economies. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations projects that global agricultural production will need to more than double by 2050 to close the gap between food supply and demand. According to CGIAR, a global agricultural research partnership, agriculture is the single largest employer in the world, providing jobs for 40% of the world’s population.