Journal for Jurisdiction Planning

Standing instrument · Version 1.0 · July 2026

Food and Energy Self-Sufficiency

A country that has to import its food and its fuel is a country that can be starved and stalled by whoever controls the route. This scores 39 of them on two questions: could it feed itself, and could it power itself, if trade were cut? The verdicts are self-sufficient, mixed, or dependent, on each axis. Click any country for the detail.

The both-sufficient club. Only five of the large economies are self-sufficient in both food and energy: Russia, Canada, the United States, Brazil, and Argentina. They could feed and power themselves behind an ocean or a border. Every other country depends on someone for one or both.

CountryRegionFoodEnergy

Self-sufficientMixedDependent

Reading the verdicts

Self-sufficiency is measured differently by every government, so the verdicts are categorical rather than precise: a country counted self-sufficient produces more of its staple food, or its energy, than it consumes. Net exporter is not the same as self-sufficient in every form. Australia sells coal and gas abroad yet imports most of its refined fuel; Nigeria exports crude and imports petrol. Those countries read as mixed.

This instrument is one of the inputs to the question of where a family would be safest if trade broke down. It sits beside the Risk Index, the chokepoints, and the custody map: distance from the narrows, plus the ability to feed and power yourself, is what a country's resilience actually rests on. The Sovereign Family states the household version.

Cite this publication

Journal for Jurisdiction Planning (2026). Food and Energy Self-Sufficiency, v1.0. jurisdictionplanning.org/self-sufficiency. Last reviewed 20 July 2026.