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The FAO Food Price Index rose in February for the first time in five months, driven by increasing cereal, meat, and vegetable oil prices. Despite the increase, however, the Index remains nearly 35 percent below the record high reached in March 2022.The Cereal Price Index rose slightly more than 1 percent in February but remained 3.5 percent below its February 2025 level. Wheat prices increased due to concerns about cold weather in Europe and the United States, as well as transportation disruptions in Russia and the Black Sea region.

The attack on Iran by U.S. and Israeli forces and Iranian retaliation against U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf have roiled energy markets by disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz—the Gulf’s only sea passage to the open ocean. About 27% of the world’s oil exports, 20% of global liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, and 20%-30% of global fertilizer exports, including urea, ammonia, phosphates, and sulfur, pass through the Strait.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts is a core element of global agrifood system transformation. Yet, while it represents an important opportunity for capital markets and investors, climate finance focused on agrifood systems has thus far been limited. In 2022, $95 billion of global climate finance funding was dedicated to agrifood industries and practices, with 22% coming from private sources.

7.5 million Pakistanis are currently facing high levels of acute food insecurity, according to a new IPC alert released this week.   Pakistan suffered from multiple climate shocks in 2025, including a monsoon-driven flooding and prolonged drought.

Natural language processing (NLP), a subfield of artificial intelligence that uses computational techniques to interpret, analyze, and generate human language, encompasses a range of tasks and techniques. These include the large language models (LLMs) that power chatbots and other types of systems, as well as specific approaches (some employed by LLMs), including information extraction and text mining.NLP offers powerful opportunities to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—including SDG2 (Zero Hunger).