What's New

From the COVID-19 pandemic to persistent conflict to desert locust outbreaks, populations around the world have faced severe challenges to food security in 2020. The number of people suffering from chronic hunger is forecast to increase from 690 million in 2019 to as many as 822 million by the end of the year.

Effective food security and agricultural policies hinge on accurate, reliable, up-to-date data and information about a wide range of factors, from the cost of agricultural inputs to average regional rainfall to the local and global market price of staple crops. Such data becomes even more critical when it comes to anticipating and responding to food crises. Since 2010, IFPRI’s Food Security Portal (FSP), supported by the EC, has developed and hosted an expanding suite of datasets and analytic tools to help inform food security monitoring and policymaking.

Rapid urbanization, increasing incomes, and changing consumer preferences are driving massive modernization of food value chains across the developing world. To keep pace with the transformation,  policymakers and researchers need a better understanding of the implications of these changes for both producers and consumers, as well as for economies and the environment.

A new initiative, the Community for Zero Hunger, was launched this week. It will identify the greatest gaps that remain in reducing hunger and malnutrition, and leverage the private sector to help fill those gaps at scale.

The FAO Food Price Index continued its climb in October, rising by 3.1 percent from September to reach its highest level since January 2020. The price of cereals, vegetable oils, sugar, and dairy all rose in October.