You just have to have the food make two hops. Or hope a trade helps you out? Or hope someone becomes a trader?
Two hops? What if I am trying to get food from 6 regions away? That's impossible with that change.
"Hope someone becomes a trader?" Seriously?
If you implement this, you might as well allow us to change the IR so we can order someone to be a trader or else a realm can easily be doomed with this change.
I thought the point of parts of the game was to increase the fun not increase the time input while not adding any fun? By trying to add too much to the trading game you're killing the ability to operate without a trader. This is like saying a region that has more than X% pagan peasants in it will start spontaneously losing stats and revolting just because you haven't had a priest make non-pagan followers.
