Approximately three billion people, almost 40 percent of the world’s population, cannot afford a healthy diet and another one billion people are likely to face the same challenge should further unpredictable events reduce incomes by one-third, according to a new report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

This year’s ‘The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) report’ by FAO titled ‘Making agrifood systems more resilient to shocks and stresses’ provides an assessment of the ability of national agrifood systems to respond to or recover readily from shocks and stressors. It also offers guidance to governments on how they can improve resilience.

Shocks, according to the report, are short-term deviations from long-term trends that have substantial negative effects on a system, people’s state of well-being, assets, livelihoods, safety and ability to withstand future shocks. Examples include extreme weather events and surges in plant and animal diseases and pests.

The SOFA 2021 report underscored that food costs could increase for up to 845 million people if a disruption to critical transport links were to occur. The report urges counties to make their agri-food systems more resilient to sudden shocks of the kind witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has emerged as a major driver of the latest rise in global hunger estimates. According to the report, without proper preparation unpredictable shocks will continue to undermine agri-food systems.

Meeting the SDGs relating to hunger and malnutrition

Even before COVID-19 broke out, the world was not on track to meet its commitment to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030. And while food production and supply chains have historically been vulnerable to climate extremes, armed conflicts or increases in global food prices, the frequency and severity of such shocks is on the rise.

“The pandemic highlighted both the resilience and the weakness of our agri-food systems”, said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu at a virtual event for the launch.

The world’s agrifood systems – the complex web of activities involved in the production of food and non-food agricultural products, as well as their storage, processing, transportation, distribution and consumption, produce 11 billion tonnes of food a year and employ billions of people, directly or indirectly. The urgency of strengthening their capacity to endure shocks cannot be stressed enough, the FAO stated.

The report also presents country-level indicators of the resilience of agrifood systems in more than a hundred countries, by analysing factors such as transport networks, trade flows and the availability of healthy and varied diets. While low-income countries generally face much bigger challenges, its findings show that middle-income countries are also at risk.

Strengthening the agrifood systems

Based on the evidence of the report, FAO recommends that governments make resilience in agrifood systems a strategic part of their responses to ongoing and future challenges.

Key among them is the need for diversification of input sources, production, markets and supply chains, as well as of actors, since diversity creates multiple pathways for absorbing shocks. Supporting the development of small and medium agrifood enterprises, cooperatives, consortia and clusters helps maintain diversity in domestic agrifood value chains.

Another key factor is connectivity. Well-connected agrifood networks overcome disruptions faster by shifting sources of supply and channels for transport, marketing, inputs and labour.

Finally, enhancing the resilience capacities of vulnerable households is critical to ensure a world free from hunger. This can be done through improved access to assets, to diversified sources of income and social protection programmes in the event of shocks.