Asian Journal of Current Research

International trade has become the principal engine driving the redistribution of insect pests across the planet, and the resulting invasions now rank among the most consequential threats to global food security. Using a narrative review approach, this article integrates evidence from invasion ecology, agricultural economics, entomology and phytosanitary policy to examine how trade-mediated insect invasions emerge, spread and affect food-security systems. This review synthesises evidence on the relationship between trade-mediated pest introductions and agricultural vulnerability, drawing on economics, ecology, entomology and phytosanitary policy. It traces the main pathways through which insects cross biogeographic barriers, including commodity shipments, wood packaging material, live plant trade and the rapidly expanding e-commerce sector, and examines how climate change interacts with these pathways to widen the geographic range over which introduced insects can establish. Case evidence from high-impact invaders, including the fall armyworm and the Oriental fruit fly, shows how genetic, phenological and behavioural traits combine with trade connectivity to produce rapid, often unpredictable spread across continents. The economic burden of biological invasions is large and rising, with global damage and management costs estimated at very high levels, while invasive insects constitute a major component of these impacts and impose especially serious risks on smallholder farming systems in low- and middle-income countries. Because the largest available global estimates often refer to biological invasions across multiple taxa rather than insects alone, these figures should be interpreted as evidence of the broader economic scale of invasion impacts, within which invasive insects represent a major and well-documented component. The review then evaluates the governance architecture built around the International Plant Protection Convention and its International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures, alongside emerging tools such as environmental DNA metabarcoding and predictive spread modelling that promise earlier detection and more targeted intervention. Classical biological control, integrated pest management and coordinated international surveillance are discussed as complementary strategies that can reduce, though not eliminate, invasion risk. The review concludes that a primarily reactive approach to pest introductions is increasingly inadequate given the scale and speed of contemporary trade flows, and that sustained investment in prevention, harmonised international standards and equitable technology transfer offers a more realistic path toward safeguarding global food supplies over the coming decades.