Energy & Commodities risk-off · 0–6 months
A what‑if from the future

What if food-price riots erupt across the Sahel?

Sahel bread riots are real political risk but localized; the asset response is regional sovereign/FX stress and a modest wheat bid, not a 3.7% Nasdaq selloff. Rhymes with the 2007-08 and 2011 food-price riots that toppled governments across North Africa — Arab Spring being the canonical analogue cited. Transmission runs through CFA-franc states and France/EU exposure plus wheat importers; the US-equity-vol cascade is wildly oversized for a Sahel food shock.

27%
our model probability
over 0–6 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 27% · 90% range 10–43% · 40 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

The butterfly cascade

How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.

Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving

Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 0–6 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Surging staple prices ignite bread riots and political unrest across multiple Sahel states, disrupting trade and aid. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Food inflation ▲ · Climate/crop supply ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.