Resource security at Higher Level: The same statement as SL, with different real cases: food in Japan and Yemen, the Syrian drought and conflict minerals in the Congo. At HL, security links to economics and law: trade, prices, reserves and blockades decide who eats.
Practise this as you read
- Judge how far two contrasting societies are food secure.
- Explain how distribution, wealth and conflict shape security.
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Enough, for long enough: Resource security is about more than having a resource today: it must keep coming, for everyone, year after year.
The points to remember
- Resource security: a society can count on enough of a resource, long-term, to meet its demand.
- Availability: enough supply, from its own land or from imports.
- Access: people can reach it and afford it.
- Reliability: supply keeps coming through droughts, price shocks and wars.
- Sustainability: today's supply does not use up tomorrow's, e.g. aquifers not drained.
- Security is lost when demand grows faster than supply, or supply suddenly fails.
Remember it as: Enough, reachable, reliable and lasting: four tests of security.
Real example: Japan grows only about 38% of the calories its people eat and imports most of its wheat, soybeans and maize. Food is available and affordable because Japan is rich, but its security depends on trade staying open.
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Why are some societies secure and others not? Start with where resources are, then add demand, climate, money and conflict.
Why security differs
- Resources are unevenly distributed: some places have plenty of oil or water, others little.
- So many countries depend on imports, which links them through trade and leaves them exposed.
- Demand rises with population and wealth: more people, more meat, more energy.
- Climate change brings droughts, floods and failed harvests.
- Wealth and technology let a country buy food or make water, e.g. desalination.
- Conflict cuts supply, and shortages can cause conflict; the resource curse can fuel it.
Raises security
- Own supply, or many suppliers
- Wealth to import or build
- Stable government and peace
Lowers security
- One river, one supplier, one crop
- Fast-growing demand, poverty
- Drought, war, blockade
Real example: in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, armed groups have fought over mines of tin, tantalum and gold, an example of the resource curse. In Syria, a severe drought from 2006 to 2010 drove farmers into cities, and many experts argue it added to the tensions behind the 2011 civil war.
Link supply and demand: For each factor, say whether it changes supply or demand, then what that does to security.
The guide asks how far two contrasting named societies have achieved security for food or water. Compare them on the same tests, then judge.
| Japan | Yemen | |
|---|---|---|
| Own production | About 38% of calories; rice grown at home | Imports about 90% of staple food |
| Access | Rich; food affordable for most people | War since 2015; incomes and currency collapsed |
| Reliability | Many trading partners; rice reserves | Ports blockaded; fuel and food delayed |
| Recent shock | Rice prices doubled in 2024-2025 | Over half the people short of food |
| Verdict | High security, but exposed to trade | Very low security; famine risk |
Real example: when Japan's rice prices roughly doubled in 2024-2025 after a hot summer cut the harvest, the government released rice from its emergency reserve in March 2025: a rich country can buffer a shock that would be a disaster in Yemen.
'To what extent' needs a verdict: Judge each society: fully, partly or hardly secure, and why. Then say what would change your verdict, such as a longer drought or a closed border.
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How this comes up: Paper 2, Section B (c): a 9-mark essay on two contrasting named societies, marked on the quality of the whole answer.
Japan imports about 60% of the calories its people eat, while Yemen imports about 90% of its staple food.
To what extent has resource security for food been achieved in two contrasting named societies?
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