Only one country can feed itself entirely: Guyana.
If international food trade suddenly stopped tomorrow, just one country on Earth would be able to feed its entire population without any imports.
A 2025 study in Nature Food examined the domestic production capacity of 186… pic.twitter.com/430mHkp6aZ
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 2, 2025
Global politics don’t feel particularly cooperative at the moment, but which countries could actually feed themselves independently if all international food trade shut down?
Just one, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Göttingen in Germany and the University of Edinburgh analyzed food production data from 186 countries. The findings revealed that Guyana is the only country that can be entirely self-sufficient in all seven key food groups that the study focused on.
China and Vietnam were the runners-up, producing enough food to meet their populations’ needs in six out of the seven categories.
Just one in seven countries hits the quota in five or more food groups, while more than a third are self-sufficient in two or fewer groups. Six countries – Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Macau, Qatar, and Yemen – were unable to meet self-sufficiency in any food group.
https://www.sciencealert.com/just-one-nation-produces-enough-food-for-itself-scientists-reveal