Image by billy cedeno from Pixabay
As part of the UN Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment, the Secretary General, António Guterres, has released a Call to Action in which he emphasises how much food is wasted and yet how many people still face hunger as a daily trial, and even starvation.
Point five is shocking: “..the number of people facing hunger and food insecurity has risen since 2015, exacerbated by the pandemic, conflict, climate change and growing inequalities. 258 million people in 58 countries faced acute food insecurity in 2022, an increase of 34% compared to 2021. 45 million children suffered from wasting. Agricultural households constitute up to two-thirds of people living in extreme poverty worldwide. Under current trends, 575 million people will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030. Projections show that by that time, approximately 600 million people will be hungry – 7% of the world’s population. This will be the same proportion as in 2015 and there will be no progress on SDG2. In addition, current food systems continue to generate pollution and degrade soil, water and air, contribute to 28% of greenhouse gas emissions, are responsible for as much as 80 percent of biodiversity loss and account for up to 70 percent of freshwater use.”
All due to broken food production systems which either completely or increasingly make the aim of food production profit instead of feeding people. This is why we need a system transformation because the food production system is not doing what it is supposed to. Not only do we have hunger in LICs, but in the richer countries as well and food poverty may not just be a lack of calories per se but a lack of access to nutritional food rather than ultra-high processed ones.
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