{"id":540,"date":"2025-10-07T15:24:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T15:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/bbc-sciencefocus\/?p=540"},"modified":"2025-10-07T15:24:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T15:24:56","slug":"only-one-country-in-the-world-produces-all-the-food-it-needs-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/bbc-sciencefocus\/2025\/10\/07\/only-one-country-in-the-world-produces-all-the-food-it-needs-heres-how\/","title":{"rendered":"Only one country in the world produces all the food it needs. Here’s how"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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planet earth<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one country in the world produces all the food it needs. Here’s why<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

While hundreds of millions around the world face food insecurity, a tiny South American nation has managed to become the only country that can entirely feed itself. How did Guyana manage it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Joe Phelan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7 October, 2025<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Photo credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Picture this. A country smaller than Idaho by area, where most people live crowded along a narrow coastal strip, with vast swathes of impenetrable rainforest covering 85 per cent of its territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By all conventional wisdom, this shouldn\u2019t be the place where people come closest to solving one of civilisation\u2019s oldest challenges \u2013 feeding themselves entirely from their own resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet Guyana, a South American nation with a population of around 830,000, has quietly achieved what no other country on Earth has managed: complete food self-sufficiency across all essential food groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revelation comes from groundbreaking research published in the journal Nature Food<\/em><\/a>, which analysed 186 countries to determine how well each could theoretically feed its population from domestic production alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guyana lies on the northeast shoulder of South America, about 2,000 miles southeast of the United States, just below the Caribbean. Credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The study\u2019s results were stark: Guyana alone achieved self-sufficiency across all seven essential food groups \u2013 fruit; vegetables; dairy; fish; meat; legumes, nuts and seeds; and starchy staples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walk through any market in Georgetown, the nation\u2019s capital, and the picture is clear: stalls stacked with local rice, root vegetables like cassava, fresh fish, fruit and other produce, much of it sourced from within Guyana\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guyana hasn\u2019t closed itself off from the world, it still trades like any modern nation. What sets it apart is that the country uniquely possesses the capacity to meet all its citizens\u2019 nutritional needs from its own soil and waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recipe for success<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To understand just how extraordinary this achievement is, consider Guyana\u2019s geographic constraints. The country sits wedged between Venezuela, Brazil, and Suriname, with most of its population concentrated along a coastal plain that makes up less than five per cent of the total land area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interior is dominated by the ancient Guiana Shield \u2013 a geological formation of pristine rainforest that, while ecologically priceless, offers little scope for large-scale agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what makes this accomplishment even more remarkable is Guyana\u2019s approach to conservation. It has achieved food self-sufficiency not by destroying its natural heritage but by maximising its limited agricultural land. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas deforestation ravages much of South America as countries clear land for farming and cattle ranching, Guyana has preserved more than 85 per cent of its original forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe climate in the coastal region of Guyana makes it highly suitable for crop production,\u201d explains Nicola Cannon, professor of Agriculture at the Royal Agricultural University in Gloucestershire, UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers bear this out: the country sits between one to nine degrees north of the equator, blessed with year-round warmth, plentiful rainfall, high humidity, and, crucially, fertile clay soils deposited by the Amazon River system over millennia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guyana\u2019s largest river, the Essequibo, flows through vast forested landscapes. Photo credit: Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But climate alone doesn\u2019t explain the success. These tropical conditions exist across much of South America, yet neighbouring countries struggle with food security. The difference lies in how Guyana has harnessed its limited farmland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read More:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n