International ReportsImportant2025-07-22

State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025

In News

What Happened

On July 22, 2025, five UN agencies (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO) jointly published the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2025 report. The report revealed that 2.33 billion people globally faced moderate or severe food insecurity. It identified conflict, extreme weather events, and severe food price inflation as the primary drivers of this crisis, which have severely restricted access to healthy diets.

Why It Matters

For India, this report highlights the vulnerability of large populations to global price shocks and climate anomalies. It underscores the urgency of improving domestic food distribution systems, curbing food inflation, and enhancing agricultural resilience to safeguard nutritional security and achieve SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) targets.

Background

History & Context

The SOFI report is an annual flagship publication tracking global progress towards ending hunger and malnutrition, aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 2.1 and 2.2. Historically, global hunger had been steadily declining until around 2015, after which it began creeping up, with a sharp spike during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. To measure these trends, UN agencies utilize critical metrics like the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) and the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES).

What Changed

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BEFORE: Previous reports heavily emphasized the lingering aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and immediate supply chain disruptions. NOW: The 2025 report explicitly centers on sustained food price inflation and escalating climate-driven extreme weather as the predominant drivers of global food insecurity.
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BEFORE: Affordability of healthy diets was measured against relatively stable base inflation rates in developing nations prior to recent global conflicts. NOW: High and entrenched food inflation has significantly widened the dietary gap, making healthy diets definitively unaffordable for a much larger subset of the 2.33 billion food-insecure individuals.
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BEFORE: Global focus heavily relied on short-term food aid interventions to conflict zones. NOW: The joint UN agencies strongly advocate for integrating climate resilience into long-term agricultural financing to mitigate recurring weather shocks.

Prelims Angle

NCERT Connection

This event directly connects to Class 9 Economics Chapter 4 ('Food Security in India'). The chapter explains the three dimensions of food security—availability, accessibility, and affordability—which the SOFI report analyzes on a global scale, particularly showing how macroeconomic food price inflation has severely compromised the 'affordability' aspect of healthy diets.

Practice Questions

Q1

Correct Statement(s)

Which of the following statements regarding the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report is/are correct? 1. It is published exclusively by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to measure the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU). 2. It tracks global progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: Zero Hunger.

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