What's New

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.

Last week, global leaders met in Davos, Switzerland for the 2019 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting . The conversation centered on globalization, climate change, and technology use, all of which play a role in food systems across the world. Technology in particular holds significant potential to transform global food systems into drivers of inclusive, sustainable development, according to the WEF’s new report, Innovation with a Purpose: Improving Traceability in Food Value Chains through Technology .

Global food prices in December 2018 declined from the levels seen in December of the previous year, according to the first FAO Food Price Index of the new year. For 2018 as a whole, the Index fell by about 3.5 percent from 2017 and by almost 27 from the all-time highs seen in 2011 during the global food price crisis. However, the price of all major cereal crops covered by the Index rose in 2018.