How private military contractors engage with food systems: Wagner in Africa

Conflict is the primary driver of food crises worldwide, with over half of those estimated to be in food crisis globally residing in Africa. While scholarship has increasingly examined the role of state and rebel groups in disrupting, manipulating and weaponising food systems in conflict, one conflict actor remains relatively under-explored: Private Military Companies (PMCs). PMCs warrant attention not only because of their increasing involvement in conflicts on the African continent, but also because they are commercially motivated, transnationally tied, and relatively unaccountableThey intersect though with food systems in distinct ways. Drawing on evidence of the activity of the Russian PMC, Wagner, in select sub-Saharan African contexts, we examine how this PMC engages with, disrupts and reshapes food systems. We also seek to make a theoretical contribution to the study of food systems in conflict by demonstrating that the type of armed actor is a meaningful factor in how food systems are targeted, exploited and weaponised.