G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting Plenary – Key Outcomes of SOFI 2025 Report Statement

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour to join you today under the Presidency of South Africa at the Agriculture Ministerial Meeting, which we started in 2016 in China.

The right to food is a basic human right, and we should speak the same language – the language of food.

I am pleased to present to you the latest evidence from the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025, prepared jointly by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO.

The report delivers both sobering realities and signs of progress. In 2024, 673 million people faced chronic undernourishment. Nearly one in every twelve people worldwide.

Hunger has declined modestly from recent peaks from 8.7 percent in 2022 to 8.2 percent in 2024, with progress in South and South-East Asia and in South America.

Yet in Africa, hunger continues to rise, with over 307 million people (20.2 percent) affected, more than one-fifth of the population.

If current trends persist, by 2030 more than 512 million people will still be hungry, almost 60 percent of them in Africa.

Beyond hunger, nearly 2.3 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2024.

And while the affordability of healthy diets improved in Asia and Latin America, the number of people unable to afford one has exceeded 1 billion in Africa, equivalent to two-thirds of the population.

There are four levels of foods that comprise food security, and now we are advocating for the level of “healthy food”, which is more challenging for Africa to access.

The average global cost of a healthy diet rose to 4.46 PPP dollars per person per day – highlighting how food price inflation has eroded access to nutrition.

Excellencies, food price inflation is not an abstract concept. The surge between 2021 and 2023 was the sharpest in decades.

In low-income countries, inflation peaked at 30 percent, leaving the poorest households unable to cope.

A 10 percent increase in food prices is associated with a 3.5 percent rise in food insecurity and, most tragically, a 5.5 percent increase in severe child wasting among children under five years of age.

These shocks deepen inequalities: women, rural households, and low-income economies bear a disproportionate burden.

But the report also offers solutions. It shows that countries that combined targeted fiscal measures, robust social protection, and credible monetary policy were better able to cushion vulnerable households.

Structural measures – such as strategic emergency food reserves, transparent market information systems, resilient trade policies, and investment in agrifood systems innovation – are critical to reducing the frequency and severity of such crises.

Excellencies,

The G20 has a pivotal responsibility. Together, you can:

• Keep global food markets open and predictable, resisting the use of export bans and trade restrictions.
• Scale up financing for resilience, including mechanisms that address shocks before they escalate into crises.
• Support investment, science and innovation in smallholder farmers, youth, women, and digital innovation to transform agrifood systems from the ground up.

The message of SOFI 2025 is clear: hunger is declining too slowly, food price inflation is eroding diets, and inequalities are widening. But with coordinated, evidence-based action, the G20 can bend the curve.

In response to this, in the past six years, FAO has led the global push for agrifood systems transformation by mobilizing targeted investments through the Hand-in-Hand Initiative, harnessing advanced geospatial data platforms to guide evidence-based decisions, the One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) initiative as one of the ways of transforming agrifood systems, as well as shaping global policy through its flagship publications such as the SOFI, SOFA, SOFIA, SOFO etc.

At the same time, the World Food Forum has become a powerful platform to empower youth and women, elevating their leadership and innovation as central to building more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable agrifood systems.

We had more than 8000 participants in Rome – and it is becoming a global movement leading the transformation.

FAO was established as a technical agency with its own constitution and its own Basic Texts, and we have independence but work in solidarity with others.

Let us build solidarity and work with each other and build resilience, sustainability and a bright future.

Let us act decisively to ensure that every person, in every country, can access sufficient, safe, and nutritious food – today and tomorrow.

Thank you.