Food Crises to Dominate Global Outlook for 2024 FAO Warns

Gilbert Ekugbe

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has stated that food crises would continue to dominate the global outlook for 2024.

According to the United Nations Food body, further funding squeezes are expected, while extreme weather events driven by the climate crisis, intensifying conflicts and economic instability would pushing more people into hunger.

To address this situation, it is soliciting a total of $1.8 billion within the Humanitarian Response Plans to assist 43 million people next year to produce their own food as part of its efforts to combat acute global hunger.

The announcement by FAO was made as part of the United Nations’ large-scale humanitarian appeal, which was launched on behalf of more than 1,900 humanitarian partners and covers 72 countries impacted by crises, both directly and indirectly.

Throughout 2023, humanitarian needs remained unacceptably high, with approximately one in every 33 people, about 258 million people in 58 countries and territories facing acute hunger driven by armed conflicts, economic shocks, climate extremes, poverty and inequality. Concurrently, humanitarian budgets began tightening, leaving millions without assistance.

On average, two-thirds of those experiencing acute food insecurity rely on agriculture for their survival. In humanitarian contexts, emergency agriculture interventions that enable people to produce their own food – often in combination with direct food distributions and cash transfers – can be the most efficient way to meet critical humanitarian needs while maximising the impact of every single dollar provided.

Yet only 4.0 per cent of total humanitarian funding going to food sectors is allocated to emergency agriculture assistance.

By the end of November, FAO had assisted more than 30 million people experiencing food crises in 2023, despite funding cuts.

Last year, at a cost of just $598 million, FAO’s emergency crop and vegetable production support alone enabled 23 million people in 29 countries to grow their own food and meet their family’s cereal needs for an average of 11 months. Overall, the crops and vegetables produced had a value of $2.75 billion. That represents an average return on investment of $6 for each $1 provided to FAO.

With this level of agricultural assistance, combined with food assistance and cash transfers, the number of rural Afghans suffering from high levels of acute food insecurity has started to fall, decreasing from 47 percent of the measured population in March to May 2022 to 40 per cent in April 2023.