Global food security and nutrition: way to go

FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation (FAOLOR), together with the Central Scientific Agricultural Library (CSAL), the official depository of FAO documents in Russia, presented the Organization’s recently launched flagship publication, the “State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” (SOFI-2020), for the Russian audience.

With only ten years remaining to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets envisaged by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in an environment increasingly vulnerable to climate and other shocks, aggravated by the unprecedented health, social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, FAO strongly believes in the urgent need for countries to identify and implement critical policy and investment changes that will transform their food systems to ensure healthy affordable diets to everybody.

Introducing SOFI-2020 which is the leading global annual report food security and all forms of malnutrition, Dr Máximo Torero Cullen, FAO’s Chief Economist, outlined the document’s key findings:

SOFI 2020 confirms the trend: While the prevalence of hunger has changed little at the global level, the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. Current estimates are that nearly 690 million people suffer from chronic hunger, or 8.9 percent of the world population – up by nearly 60 million in five years. The most affected are countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) in Africa was 19.1 percent of the population in 2019, or more than 250 million undernourished people, up from 17.6 percent in 2014. This prevalence is the highest among all regions. 

Asia has shown progress in reducing the number of hungry people in recent years, down by almost 8 million since 2015. However, Asia is home to more than half of the total undernourished people in the world – an estimated 381 million people. More than 250 million live in Africa, where the number of undernourished people is growing faster than in any other region of the world.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the PoU was 7.4 percent in 2019 - almost 48 million undernourished people. The region has seen a rise in hunger in the past few years, with the number of undernourished people increasing by 9 million between 2015 and 2019. 

Experts conclude: “The world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030. If recent trends continue, the number of people affected by hunger will surpass 840 million by 2030. This is an alarming scenario, even without taking into account the potential impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.” 

Overall, projected trends in undernourishment – without considering the effects of COVID-19 – would change the geographic distribution of world hunger dramatically. While Asia would still be home to almost 330 million hungry people in 2030, its share of the world’s hunger would shrink substantially. Africa would overtake Asia to become the region with the highest number of undernourished people, accounting for 51.5 percent of the total.

COVID-19 is expected to worsen the overall prospects for food security and nutrition. Pockets of food insecurity may appear in countries and population groups that were not traditionally affected. A preliminary assessment suggests the pandemic may add between 83 and 132 million people to the total number of undernourished in the world in 2020, depending on the economic growth scenario (losses ranging from 4.9 to 10 percentage points in global GDP growth). 

The number of people affected by severe food insecurity, which is another measure that approximates hunger, also shows an upward trend. In 2019, close to 750 million – or nearly one in ten people in the world – were exposed to severe levels of food insecurity.

Considering the total affected by moderate or severe levels of food insecurity, an estimated 2 billion people in the world did not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food in 2019.

The data collected by FAO using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale also reveal that the prevalence of food insecurity at moderate or severe level, and severe level only, is higher among women than men. The gender gap in accessing food increased from 2018 to 2019.

Globally, the burden of malnutrition in all its forms remains a challenge. According to estimates, in 2019, 21.3 percent (144.0 million) of children under 5 years of age were stunted, 6.9 percent (47.0 million) were wasted and 5.6 percent (38.3 million) were overweight. 

The world is not making progress on track to achieve the global targets for child stunting and low birth weight, and for exclusive breastfeeding. 

In 2019, more than nine out of ten stunted children lived in Africa or Asia, representing 40 percent and 54 percent of all stunted children in the world, respectively. Most regions have made some progress in reducing stunting between 2012 and 2019 but not at the rate needed to achieve the 2025 and 2030 targets.

A key reason why millions of people around the world suffer from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition is because they cannot afford the cost of healthy diets. Food systems transformation is required to address the problem of millions of people not being able to afford healthy diets because of the high price of nutritious foods and income constraints.

Experts’ analysis shows that even the least cost healthy diet is unaffordable for more than 3 billion people in the world.

“To achieve the dietary patterns for healthy diets that include sustainability considerations, large transformative changes in food systems will be needed at all levels. Given the large diversity of current food systems and wide discrepancies in food security and nutrition status across and within countries, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for countries,” FAO’s Chief Еconomist, Dr Máximo Torero Cullen, concluded.

“Ensuring safe and high-quality food is one of the most important areas of government policy in the Russian Federation. Over the past few years, our country has confidently become one of the leading nations that pay close attention to the issues of safe and high-quality nutrition. Human well-being and health is a priority national goal,” said Dr. Vyacheslav Smolensky, Deputy Head of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor).

“Practical implementation of the policy in the field of healthy nutrition in the Russian Federation is carried out by Rospotrebnadzor, in particular, within the framework of the National Project “Demography”. A significant part of this project is devoted to the promotion and formation of the principles of healthy nutrition of the population,” said Vyacheslav Smolensky. He also noted that the project is focused on four areas: legal regulation, monitoring of the population’s nutrition, strengthening control over the quality of products on the shelves in stores, and awareness-raising.

Rospotrebnadzor is engaged in the development and promotion of healthy nutrition principles among the population. “We aim to address the issue of changing eating habits from an early age, from school and kindergarten with the involvement of parents, said Vyacheslav Smolensky. But it is necessary to create opportunities for this, because “appeals without opportunities will not produce anything.”

In 2015, a national report on the state of nutrition in the Russian Federation was prepared and presented to FAO. In September-October of 2020, it is expected that a new report will be presented, including to international organizations, and it will become a platform for exchanging views within the framework of FAO throughout the region.

In her turn, Elena Frolova, Head of the Department for statistics of living standards and household surveys of Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), noted: “All this great work has become possible in Russia only with the experience and practical potential that has been accumulated by the Institute of Nutrition with the support of Rospotrebnadzor and with the advice by FAO experts.”

WHO is implementing an initiative with the Russian network of “Healthy Cities” to develop healthy eating habits targeting school children, with the involvement of teachers and parents, said Dr Melita Vujnović, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in the Russian Federation. 

A reasonable diet paired with physical activity serves as preventive measures to avoid non-communicable diseases. This initiative is “an investment into our future”, Dr Melita Vujnović summed up. More than 100 cities and 60 schools have already joined in. A practical guide to action is under development. It is evident that the “commercial environment” should not be discounted. However, it is encouraging that entrepreneurs are getting involved having realized that at the end of the day it amounts to investment in future human potential. 

In his turn, Dr João Breda, Head WHO European Office for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, called on all the concerned parties to share information and experience on the link between malnutrition and non communicable diseases, which are responsible for more than 70% of premature deaths. “Some ten years ago, the term “food systems” sounded as a bizarre word”, the expert said. But now everyone has realized this is a complex issue directly related to health and well-being. In many regions of the world, unfortunately, there is excessive consumption of sugar and salt. It all amounts to the acute problem of unhealthy diets. These habits often produce cardiovascular diseases. Thus, the order of the day is clear, intoned Dr Breda: “Promote healthy, sustainable food systems.” 

COVID-19 has a massive impact on national economies and, consequently, on the most vulnerable social groups, namely, children, noted Ms Afshan Khan, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia. It exacerbates the existing grave issues. Governments should “put in place policies to simultaneously reduce the burden of undernourishment, obesity and stunting.”  

Undernutrition puts children at a greater risk of dying from common infections, increases the frequency and severity of infections, and delays recovery. This interaction creates a potentially deadly cycle of deteriorating health and worsening nutritional status. 

What is essential, is to unify efforts and apply a “unified approach”, noted Ms Afshan Khan while saying that on this track “Russia’s technical assistance is much appreciated by UNICEF.” She regards the SOFI-2020 report as “a call for action” and confirms, “UNICEF is ready to collaborate with partners.”

In his turn Academician Viktor Tutelyan, a renowned expert in the field of nutrition and food safety, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pointed to several alarming trends. A recent study showed that 62 percent of adults in Russia are either overweight or obese (63 percent of men and 60 percent of women); 17.1 percent of children are overweight and 9.9 percent obese. 

Therefore, an important area of work for doctors and practitioners in the field of healthy nutrition is the promotion of a Healthy Lifestyle (HL). Academician Tutelyan named the criteria for a healthy lifestyle: no smoking; consumption of vegetables and fruits (at least 400 g per day); adequate physical activity (at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of intensive physical activity per week); moderate salt consumption (no more than 5.0 g of NaCl per day); very limited consumption of alcohol, not exceeding 168 ml of spirits for men and 84 ml for women per week. 

The key goal of Healthy Lifestyle is to increase life expectancy, academician Tutelyan emphasized. If today, in Russia, average life expectancy stands at 72 years, then by 2024 it should increase to 78 and by 2030 to 80+ years. 

“Today, there are 2 billion people in the world who cannot afford proper nutrition, and this figure may yet grow. At the same time, it is the responsibility of governments to feed their own populations. Russia is a good example of how to solve the problem of hunger. Already in 2018, the prevalence of undernutrition in Russia was very low, about 1.6% (among people over 18 years of age). This was stated on July 14 by Maxim Reshetnikov, Russian Minister of Economic Development, when he presented the first Voluntary National Review on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on behalf of Russia,” Mr Oleg Kobiakov, Director, FAO Liaison Office with the Russian Federation, noted.

*   *   * 

Around 100 experts and media representatives participated in the webinar session. Some of the follow-up questions were addressed in the Q&A chat window. 

Within the Q&A exchange, it is worth highlighting the answer by Dr Máximo Torero Cullen to the question, “Are GMO-containing foods nutritious? How does the world community assess such products in terms of nutrition?”:

“Most GMOs are on staple commodities and therefore focus more on energy based foods. It is FAO’s position that science and technology, including agricultural biotechnologies, can play significant roles in the fight against food insecurity and malnutrition. Regarding genetic modification, which is used to produce the so-called genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, specifically, FAO recognizes that GMOs can help in some circumstances to increase production and productivity and thus contribute to food security and nutrition. 

However, FAO is also aware of the concerns that GMOs could potentially pose risks for human and animal health and the environment. It is for this reason that FAO emphasizes the need to carefully evaluate on a case-by-case basis the potential benefits and risks associated with the application of GMOs,” Dr Máximo Torero Cullen noted.