If you had to come up with a worst-case scenario for a global food crisis, it would look a lot like what’s unfolded this year: a dangerous combination of war, drought and punishingly high prices for fertilizer, fuel and crops.

When the food and agricultural arm of the United Nations released its annual report on the state of food insecurity this summer, the agency warned that 345 million people are on the brink of starvation, and that looming famines threaten to bring about “global destabilization, starvation and mass migration on an unprecedented scale.”