Food Systems

With food crises on the rise, with an estimated 295.3 million people facing high levels of acute food insecurity in 2024. In the face of these stark hunger levels, policymakers, humanitarian organizations, development practitioners, and private sector actors urgently need knowledge about how to effectively enhance the resilience of local and regional food systems.

Worldwide, government spending on subsidies in agriculture, fishing, and fossil fuels amounts to a staggering $1.25 trillion annually. Subsidies play a significant role in every country’s fiscal policies, regardless of income level or spending patterns. Spending on energy and agricultural subsidies consistently accounts for 2%-3% of GDP on average across income levels and make the production and transportation of food cheaper.

Agrifood value chains (AVCs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have been expanding due to a range of factors, including income growth, urbanization, more market-oriented policies, globalization, and technological changes. Integrating smallholder farmers into those growing value chains, particularly for higher-value commodities, is an important path towards reducing poverty and generating employment opportunities, particularly for women and rural youth.

Food systems around the world face growing challenges. They must be transformed to sustainably feed a growing global population and made more resilient to shocks from extreme weather to conflict. Efforts on those fronts are increasingly interlinked—and depend on well-targeted local interventions.

Climate change, malnutrition, and poor diets are interconnected. Without well-financed climate change adaptation plans and strategies global nutrition disparities could worsen.