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STORY: UN / STATE OF FOOD SECURITY
TRT: 02:54
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 22 JULY 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
22 JULY 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Máximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):
“What we have seen between 2020 and 2024 in the world, has experienced a dramatic increase in food prices driven by a combination of unprecedented global shocks. The episodes described in this publication brings up what we call a perfect storm, illustrate how fragile global agrifood systems remain in the face of component disruptions. The only time we have seen something similar was around in the 70s.”
4. Wide shot, press room dais
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Máximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):
“The report shows that a 10 percent increase in food prices was associated with a 3.5 increase in moderate or severe food insecurity, and a 1.8 percent increase in severe food insecurity. These impacts are especially acute in Africa and Western Asia, where food imports dependence and currency appreciation make food even less affordable.”
6. Wide shot, press room dais
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Máximo Torero, Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO):
“Countries with robust governance structures and preexisting response mechanisms acted faster and more effectively, and investments in policy infrastructure institutional capacity is essential for future crises preparedness. So again, the SOFI underscores inflation can undermine progress, it underlines our vulnerabilities, and it also brings the importance of strengthening resilience, inclusiveness, and transparency to be able to avoid and minimize the risk of these problems.”
8. Wide shot, press room dais
9. Wide shot, conference room
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Bob Rae, President, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC):
“Global hunger has been sharply rising since 2019 and remains alarmingly high. In 2023 nearly 1 in 11 worldwide face hunger - that's close to 10 percent - and over 2 billion experienced food insecurity.”
11. Wide shot, conference room
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Bob Rae, President, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC):
“There are two things that we can point to in particular, two global events. One is the pandemic, which allowed prices to go up and became very sticky at the top. And the second is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which denied an awful lot of people access to grain and drove grain prices way high. We all know from, well, the real world where prices come up, they're much slower going down.”
14. Wide shot, conference room
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Bob Rae, President, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC):
“The SOFI Report offers analysis of practical options for action to minimize the impacts of inflation and hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition. It reminds us that ending hunger and malnutrition isn't just about producing more food, although that is important. It's about ensuring access to healthy diets for all, especially in times of crisis.”
16. Wide shot, conference room
The Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Máximo Torero today (22 Jul) presented the findings of the upcoming State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2025 report and said the world, “has experienced a dramatic increase in food prices driven by a combination of unprecedented global shocks,” including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Talking to reporters in New York via video teleconference, Torero said, “the episodes described in this publication brings up what we call a perfect storm” and illustrate “how fragile global agrifood systems remain in the face of component disruptions.”
He said, the only time we have seen something similar was around in the 70s.
The report, Torero said, “shows that a 10 percent increase in food prices was associated with a 3.5 increase in moderate or severe food insecurity, and a 1.8 percent increase in severe food insecurity.”
He said, “these impacts are especially acute in Africa and Western Asia, where food imports dependence and currency appreciation make food even less affordable.”
The FAO Chief Economist told reporters that “countries with robust governance structures and preexisting response mechanisms acted faster and more effectively” as investments in policy infrastructure institutional capacity are “essential for future crises preparedness.”
He said, “the SOFI underscores inflation can undermine progress, it underlines our vulnerabilities, and it also brings the importance of strengthening resilience, inclusiveness and transparency to be able to avoid and minimize the risk of these problems.”
Earlier in the day, the President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Bob Rae presented the report at an event in the sidelines of the ECOSOC’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).
Rae said, “global hunger has been sharply rising since 2019 and remains alarmingly high. In 2023 nearly 1 in 11 worldwide face hunger - that's close to 10 percent - and over 2 billion experienced food insecurity.”
He said, “there are two things that we can point to in particular, two global events. One is the pandemic, which allowed prices to go up and became very sticky at the top. And the second is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which denied an awful lot of people access to grain and drove grain prices way high. We all know from, well, the real world where prices come up, they're much slower going down.”
The SOFI Report, Rae said, “offers analysis of practical options for action to minimize the impacts of inflation and hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition. It reminds us that ending hunger and malnutrition isn't just about producing more food, although that is important. It's about ensuring access to healthy diets for all, especially in times of crisis.”
The 2025 edition of SOFI will be launched on Monday 28 July during the Second UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake (UNFSS+4) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The report examines the challenges that rising food prices pose for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2.1 and 2.2 targets of ending hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition by 2030. The report also explores the drivers behind recent food inflation, its impact on food security and nutrition, and the policy responses necessary to prevent and mitigate these effects.
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