‘State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023. Urbanization, agrifood systems transformation and healthy diets across the rural-urban continuum‘ – the SOFI report, published by FAO with contributions from IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO – provides an update on hunger and malnutrition at the planetary level. (1)
1) State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, SOFI Report 2023. Introduction
‘End hunger and all forms of malnutrition‘ (#SDG2.1, 2.2), the top Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda, are getting further and further away from the first edition of the SOFI report (2017) due to intensifying conflicts, extreme weather events, economic crises and inequalities (see notes 2-8).
The SOFI reports-as well as providing evidence of the systemic failure of foreign and social policies of most of FAO’s 195 members (194 states and the European Union)-offers useful insights into megatrends that deserve attention in agricultural, environmental, food and health policies. Such as accelerated urbanization and the epidemic spread of junk food.
International and multilateral cooperation is all the more necessary in research and development, to address key issues such as the availability of safe and healthy food for the most vulnerable-in both health and socio-economic status-of the world’s populations. And their production sustainable, therefore stable and constant.
2) Growing hunger
Hunger afflicted at least 9.2 percent of the world’s population by 2022, between 691 and 783 million humans according to rough downward estimates by UN agencies. 122 million more people – that is, more than twice the population in Italy – have fallen into the vortex of acute malnutrition, compared to the pre-Covid era (when hunger affected at least 7.9 percent, 2019 data).
‘Between 2021 and 2022, progress was made in reducing hunger in Asia and Latin America, but hunger is still on the rise in West Asia, the Caribbean, and all subregions of Africa.’
U.N. agencies express optimism hunger may be reduced to afflict ‘only’ 600 million individuals by 2030. Not because of the West’s aid to poorer countries, which is now nonexistent as we have seen. (9) The only hopes now rest with cooperation in the BRICS area, which will hopefully lead to a new world order inspired by peace and multilateralism.
3) Malnutrition for a third of humanity.
29.6 percent of humanity — 2.4 billion people — live in severe or ‘moderate’ ‘food insecurity‘ (according to FIES, Food Insecurity Experience Scale parameters). 60.9 percent of the population in Africa, 37.5 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, 24.2 percent in Asia, 13 percent in Oceania, and 8 percent in North America and Europe are ‘food insecure.’ With greater exposure of populations in rural areas (+3.7 percent) and women (+2.4 percent).
148.1 million children under the age of five (22.3 percent of the total) are found to be suffering from rickets, 45 million (6.8 percent) from starvation and chronic malnutrition, and 37 million (5.6 percent) overweight. These numbers, moreover, are inconsistent, at least in terms of overweight and obesity, with the data contained in the WHO and UNICEF macro-regional reports (10,11).
4) Urbanization and the spread of junk-food in poorer countries.
Urbanization is growing markedly, with the share of the global population living in cities-now 56 percent-expected to rise to 70 percent by 2050. (12) This phenomenon is driving changes in agribusiness systems ‘along the rural-urban continuum.’ Global Big Food giants have entrenched the distribution of junk food- ultra-processed and harmful foods, (13) due to poor nutritional profiles-even in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs).
The big challenge is to ensure access to affordable healthy diets for all. Therefore, policies are needed that can:
– hinder production and sale of HFSS(high in fat, salt and/or sugar) products, with tax and nutrition information policies but also by leveraging the social responsibility of the companies involved, (14)
– Promote short supply chains, to meet daily vegetable and fruit needs and include small farmers in formal value chains.
5) Research and development
FAO also stresses the need to increase public investment in research and development to develop healthier food systems, as well as to increase the availability and accessibility of nutritious and balanced foods. ‘Technology can be particularly important in enhancing the ability of urban and peri-urban agriculture to provide nutritious food in cities and towns‘.
Technologies must help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) produce and distribute safe and nutritious food while saving energy, water and resources. The SOFI 2023 report cites the examples of low-cost cold storage and solar dryers, circular economy solutions for ‘Process by-products (about 50 percent of processed fish, with the highest concentration of nutrients) and other underutilized aquatic foods, such as seaweed, into processed foods for inclusion in local school feeding programs‘ (some of our examples in notes 15,16).
Development of capacities for SMEs must be integrated into broader programs to strengthen value chains at the local and neighborhood levels to overcome rising production costs and difficulties in accessing raw materials on supply-chain fragmented and ‘Improve inadequate storage, energy, and transportation infrastructure’.
#SDG1, No Poverty. #SDG3, Good Health and Well-Being. #SDG10, Reduced Inequalities. #SDG11, Sustainable Cities and Communities. #SDG12, Responsible Consumption and Production.
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2023. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023. Urbanization, agrifood systems transformation and healthy diets across the rural-urban continuum. FAO, Rome. doi:
https://doi.org/10.4060/cc3017en. https://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cc3017en
(2) Dario Dongo, Giulia Baldelli. Hunger and malnutrition, the world upside down. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 21.10.18
(3) Dario Dongo, Sabrina Bergamini. Happy Easter for a few. FAO, WFP, WHO Reports.. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 21.4.19
(4) Dario Dongo, Sabrina Bergamini. Food security and nutrition, FAO report 2019. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 12.7.19
(5) Dario Dongo, Sabrina Bergamini. 3.5 billion people forced into hunger and misery. The FAO 2020 report against the light. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 15.7.20
(6) Dario Dongo, Sabrina Bergamini. Acute food crisis in at least 27 countries, FAO and World Food Programme report. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 26.7.20
(7) Sabrina Bergamini. 2021, the hunger pandemic. Égalité. 12.8.21
(8) Sabrina Bergamini. The hunger pandemic does not stop. Zero hunger is a mirage. Égalité. 24.12.22
(9) Dario Dongo. Food security, disaster in the making. Regardless of the Ukrainian grain. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 3.8.22
(10) Sabrina Bergamini, Dario Dongo. Obesity, childhood obesity, and marketing. WHO Europe 2022 Report. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 16.6.22
(11) Dario Dongo. Mexico, protecting minors from junk food. Bans are triggered. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 26.8.20
(12) Dario Dongo. The world in 2050, transformations needed. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 4.11.18
(13) Dario Dongo, Andrea Adelmo Della Penna. Ultraprocessed foods, the worst evil. Appeal of scientists in the British Medical Journal. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 16.8.21
(14) Marta Strinati. Big Food, the unsustainable business of unbalanced foods alerts investors. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 9.3.23
(15) Dario Dongo, Andrea Adelmo Della Penna. EcoeFISHent, upcycling and blue economy in the fish supply chain. The EU research project. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 18.10.21
(16) Dario Dongo, Andrea Adelmo Della Penna. ProFuture, solar drying for sustainable microalgae. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 13.8.22
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.