FSP Blog

Our window of opportunity for achieving SDG 2 — eradicating hunger and malnutrition and ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food for all by 2030 — is closing rapidly. However, far from moving closer to that goal, the world has seen a resurgence of hunger and food insecurity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed both the vulnerability and the resilience of food supply chains. Supply chains from farm to retail have been disrupted, primarily by government-imposed lockdowns and other restrictions affecting labor supply, input provisioning, logistics, wholesale, retailing, and food service. Supply chains have also shown a good deal of resilience and innovative capacity to adapt to the major supply and demand shocks they encountered.

According the 2021 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) Report released today, we are not on track to achieve the goal of ending global hunger by 2030 (SDG2). The compounding effects of COVID-19 coupled with drivers of food insecurity – conflicts, climate change and economic slowdowns and downturns – have further swerved us from the path.

The FAO Food Price Index declined in June following twelve consecutive months of rising prices. The Index fell by 2.5 percent from May, driven by declining vegetable oil, cereal, and dairy prices. Despite the June decrease, however, the Index remains 33.9 percent above its May 2020 level.

Introduction