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Overview of the Global Food System and the Forces That Impact It

By Ana Claudia Cerasoli - Corteva Agriscience
President for the Meso-Andean Region

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By Ana Claudia Cerasoli | President, Meso-Andean Region - Wed, 01/11/2023 - 15:00

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Ensuring food supply is an objective that governments and international organizations are finding difficult to achieve. This difficulty is aggravated by the combination of a number of factors that have slowed the progress that food systems had registered until 2019.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there are 811 million people who suffer from hunger and, in 2020, one in three citizens in the world did not have access to adequate food. The UN World Food Program (WFP) has reported the highest number of individuals in crisis since six years ago, when it began reporting on food risk, which is attributed to global shocks that have reached unprecedented levels.   

The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) 2022, developed by Economist Impact and supported by Corteva Agriscience, includes among these disruptive events the pandemic of COVID-19, political instability, rampant inflation, rising food costs and dramatic climate changes, which all have highlighted the fragility of the global food system and the serious impact it has had on food security.  

The GFSI 2022 reveals that the food environment is gradually deteriorating, and it also concludes the above after making a thorough analysis of the four pillars of food security in 113 countries: affordability; availability; quality and safety; and sustainability and adaptation.

The stagnation in food security observed this year is, according to the Global Food Security Index 2022, a consequence of structural problems and risks in the global food system, including volatility in agricultural production, scarcity of natural resources, increasing economic inequality, and the instability of trade and supply chain, among other reasons.

The Behavior of the Four Key Pillars

The GFSI 2022 presents a broad landscape of n the behaviors of these four pillars that support the global food system. 

  • Affordability. People find it increasingly difficult to purchase food because of its high cost as a result of the weakening of international trade and the inability to finance safety networks. 

In this sense, the GFSI 2022 indicates that, globally, the affordability pillar is declining: from 71.9 points to 69 points between 2019 and 2022; a drop of 4 percent It highlights the growing risks stemming from armed conflicts, and political instability. In particular, the war between Ukraine and Russia has far-reaching implications for the food security of that country and many others around the world. 

  • Availability. The landscape has improved in this area, but it is still the second weakest pillar of the GFSI. Being closely linked to agricultural activity, it has suffered the effects of low scores in areas such as prices for producers, the empowerment of women farmers, public spending on research and development, irrigation infrastructure and soil organic content.

  • Quality and safety. A phenomenon observed in 2022 was that nutritional plans ceased to be a priority. In fact, the large drops in nutritional standards, especially national plans, and monitoring in this area, caused the quality and safety pillar to reduce worldwide from 67.1 points to 65.9 points. 

According to the report, 35 of the 113 countries included in the global index do not have a national nutrition plan or strategy this year, almost double those that did not have one in 2019. And 25 of them do not regularly monitor the nutritional status of their population, which can make it difficult to identify the population's nutritional deficiencies and allocate the necessary resources.  

  • Sustainability and adaptation. The sustainability and adaptation pillar has grown by 3.8 percent, mainly driven by national agricultural adaptation policies and disaster risk management. This adaptation is fundamental: experts state that the food sector needs to transform the way it grows, distributes and commercializes food, reorganizes its social, political, market, scientific and technological and biophysical environment, and analyzes the results of the food system. 

Collaboration and resilience

The food system is under great pressure and faces unprecedented challenges. The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) 2022 reveals a close connection between security and collaboration between public, private and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that must collaborate to build a solid and resilient food system, which is capable of withstanding the tensions and shocks to which it is exposed.

Companies like Corteva are fully collaborating around the world to increase farmers' access to cutting-edge technology and, consequently, boost their financial and productive security to improve access, availability, and quality of food for the world's population.  

Undoubtedly, climate change, health phenomena, and political conflicts highlight the fragility of the global food system, and the weakening of access to nutritious food. With technology, scientific advances, and closer collaboration with farmers, it is going to be possible to combat food insecurity more effectively, as well as building a more resilient food system

Photo by:   Ana Claudia Cerasoli

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