Data

Fourteen percent of the food produced globally is lost during the post-harvest production stage before reaching the retail stage of the food system, according to the newly-released FAO 2019 State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report . While significant, this figure is less than an earlier FAO loss estimate of one-third of all food. Some regional losses are higher, reaching over 15% in North America and Europe and over 20% in Central and South Asia.

According to the 2018 Global Report on Food Crises, an estimated 124 million people worldwide face crisis-level or worse food insecurity, largely as a result of conflict and political instability or extreme weather events.

In January 2018, the FAO Food Price Index rose by 1.8 percent from its end-of-the-year levels. This increase was driven mainly by a sharp rise in dairy prices, as well as slighter increases in vegetable oil and sugar prices. The Index remained 2.2 percent below January 2017 levels, however.

Over the past century, enormous progress has been made in improving human welfare worldwide, thanks to quantum leaps in technology, rapid urbanization, and innovations in production systems. Yet immense challenges remain. Billions of people still face pervasive poverty, gross inequalities, joblessness, disease, and deprivation. In addition, the impacts of this progress on the environment, specifically those of climate change, are already being felt and will continue to intensify.

The world’s agricultural monitoring systems provide up-to-date information on food production to decision makers that is crucial to global and national food security. When prices become dangerously volatile—as they did during the food price crisis of 2007-2011—these systems spread critical information quickly that can reduce the risks of market and supply upheavals.