This study examines how seasonal timing, temporal persistence, and structural inequality shape acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3+) in Afghanistan between 2017 and 2024. Province-level fixed-effects panel regressions are utilized separately for pre-harvest, harvest, and post-harvest periods, using model-based IPC3+ estimates to compare relative patterns across provinces and seasons. The results show that associations between rainfall, conflict, and food insecurity shift with the agricultural calendar. In the pre-harvest lean period, rainfall deficits and localized conflict coincide with peak food stress. During harvest, excess rainfall and political instability disrupt transport and crop marketing, while demonstrations are less tightly coupled to food outcomes. In the post-harvest period, demonstrations again show a strong positive association with acute food insecurity, but as part of a feedback loop in which unrest and food stress may both drive and respond to one another. Lagged specifications indicate that climatic shocks and political violence carry forward across seasons, contributing to cumulative impacts. Season-specific provincial fixed effects summarize relatively stable structural conditions after controlling for climate and conflict, revealing enduring disparities between resilient urban-irrigated provinces and vulnerable remote rain-fed regions. Overall, Afghanistan’s acute food insecurity emerges as cyclical, timing-dependent, and shaped by the interaction of seasonal shocks and structural vulnerability, underscoring the need for anticipatory, geographically targeted resilience strategies.