The latest report from the UN agency shows that in 2021 the expected recovery did not take place. Half of the world’s undernourished population is found on the Asian continent. It also recorded the largest increase in the costs of proper nutrition.
Milan () – The economic recovery observed in most countries in the post-pandemic period has not translated into an increase in food security; On the contrary, the effects of Covid-19 on malnutrition continued to be felt throughout 2021, especially in the Asian continent, which was making great progress in reducing hunger. This is stated in the report on the state of food and nutritional security in the world published yesterday by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The document shows that by 2030, 670 million people – 8% of the world’s population – will still be undernourished. It is the same percentage as in 2015, when the UN 2030 Agenda was launched to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, including “zero hunger”. Had it not been for the pandemic, there would be 78 million fewer undernourished people in 2030.
Between 702 and 828 million people went hungry last year, 425 million of them – more than half – in Asia alone, with more than 330 million undernourished people in the south of the continent. Although in absolute terms Asia seems to be the most affected continent, it is in Africa where hunger is most widespread, with more than 20% of the population undernourished. Compared to 2019, the largest increase – in percentage and absolute terms – occurred precisely on the African continent, where hunger affected 278 million people in 2021.
On a global scale, food insecurity considered serious went from 9.3% to 11.7% in two years, an increase equivalent to 207 million people. In Asia, severe food insecurity increased by 10.5%, corresponding to 37.5 million more people in 2021. In absolute terms, this is a much higher increase than in Africa. At the same time, however, Asia is also the only continent where the level of moderate food insecurity between 2020 and 2021 remained stable.
Yet Asia is emblematic of another problem set to get worse in 2022: rising food costs. The quality of the diet influences the level of nutrition and food security of the population; malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and obesity are directly related to the quantity and quality of food eaten.
Post-pandemic inflation pushed up the prices of basic necessities around the world, but already between 2019 and 2020 Asia had seen the largest increase (equivalent to 4%) in the costs of a balanced diet. In absolute terms, this means that almost 3.1 billion people in the world could not afford adequate nutrition in 2020, an increase of 112 million people compared to 2019.
In Asia, the increase in the number of people who could not afford a balanced diet was 78 million, followed by Africa (with an additional 25 million people) and, to a lesser extent, Latin America and the Caribbean, and finally South America. North and Europe (respectively eight and one million more people).
In this case, East Asia is the subregion where prices have skyrocketed the most, with a 6% increase in costs and an 18.7% increase in the number of people without access to adequate nutrition. Here the cost of a healthy diet reached $4.72 per person per day in 2020, while in the Western world (Europe and North America) it was $3.19. However, East Asia is also the region least affected by food insecurity, to the point of being the only region in the world to have reached pre-pandemic levels.
Due to the war in Ukraine it is not possible to make precise predictions about the future, but the situation is likely to continue to worsen: “the direct and indirect effects of the conflict in 2022 will have multiple implications on world agricultural markets in terms of channels of trade, production and prices,” says the FAO report. “All of this casts a shadow over the state of food security and nutrition for many countries, especially those already facing food crises.” In other words, it is very difficult for the inequalities that have been created, between countries and within them, also due to the current conflict, to reverse soon.
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