Despite minor statistical declines in hunger figures, a joint UN report underscores a lingering structural crisis affecting over a quarter of the global population with more than half of Africa’s population facing food insecurity. As animal-source foods represent the largest cost driver for healthy diets in severely impacted regions, the strategic role of efficient feed and livestock supply chains becomes ever more vital.

Released on 21 July by five United Nations specialized agencies, the 2026 edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) reveals that behind the touted top-line reductions in hunger, the global agrifood system continues to fail billions. While headline hunger figures dropped slightly to 645 million people in 2025, a staggering 2.1 billion people (25.8% of the global population) still suffer from moderate or severe food insecurity. Severe regional disparities persist, with more than half of Africa’s population facing food insecurity, proving that minor gains remain dangerously uneven and wholly insufficient to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2: Zero Hunger) by the 2030 deadline.

Crucially for the livestock and feed industries, the UN report highlights that the cost of a healthy diet remains the primary bottleneck to global nutritional security, rising to an average of $4.28 PPP per person per day. Animal-source foods, essential for curbing widespread child stunting and micro-nutrient deficiencies, were identified as the single largest cost component of a healthy diet in regions like Africa. Because post-farmgate activities, including processing, logistics, and wholesale, account for up to 75% of final consumer food prices, optimizing processing efficiencies and feed supply chains stands out as a non-negotiable imperative to bring nutrient-dense, animal-protein diets within reach for the 2.69 billion people currently priced out.

STUBBORN NUMBERS AND DEEP REGIONAL RIFTS

The SOFI 2026 data presents a complex picture where modest numerical declines coexist with deep-seated structural vulnerabilities. Globally, the share of the population facing hunger fell to 7.8 percent in 2025 from 8.1 percent in 2024 and 8.6 percent in 2022. In absolute terms, approximately 645 million people experienced hunger in 2025—a decline of nearly 14 million compared to 2024 and 43 million since the peak in 2022. Broad access metrics reflect a parallel trend, with moderate or severe food insecurity dropping from 27.1 percent in 2024 to 25.8 percent in 2025. FAO Director-General QU Dongyu noted during the launch in Rome that these figures demonstrate progress is technically possible through targeted policy interventions and sustained investments in agrifood systems.

However, a closer look at the geographic breakdown reveals stark inequalities. The decline in global hunger is driven primarily by sustained recoveries across Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of Asia—particularly Southern Asia. Conversely, Africa presents a far more alarming reality. Although the continent halted its upward trajectory for the first time since 2017, stabilizing its hunger rate at 20.0 percent in 2025, Africa is now home to 309 million undernourished people—surpassing Asia’s 292 million. More critically, 56.6 percent of Africa’s entire population faces moderate or severe food insecurity. Compounded by rapid demographic growth, extreme weather events, and reduced official development assistance, the continent remains the epicenter of the global food crisis.

THE COST OF NUTRITION AND ANIMAL PROTEIN

While caloric availability shows marginal improvements, access to quality nutrition remains severely constrained. The joint report by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO stresses that global progress on maternal and child nutrition targets is failing to keep pace with international goals. Global prevalence of adult obesity continues its steady rise, reaching 16.2 percent in 2024, while anemia among women of reproductive age is worsening in almost all regions. Only 30.8 percent of children aged 6 to 23 months consume a minimally diverse diet, leaving 150 million children under five years of age chronically stunted.

A core determinant of this nutritional deficit is the soaring cost of a healthy diet, which reached a global average of 4.28 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars per person per day in 2025. While the number of people unable to afford a healthy diet declined globally to 2.69 billion (32.7 percent of the population), affordability worsened drastically in Africa, where 66.6 percent of the population cannot afford nutrient-rich food.

Both WHO and FAO analyses converge on a critical finding: animal-source foods, alongside fruits and vegetables, represent the largest financial burden in achieving a balanced diet. In regions like Africa, animal-source foods—milk, meat, and eggs—are the single largest contributor to diet costs. Because these perishable, nutrient-dense products are indispensable for combating child stunting and micro-nutrient deficiencies, resolving their price inflation is vital for global public health.

POST-FARMGATE EFFICIENCIES AND VALUE CHAINS

Addressing the high price of animal protein requires looking beyond primary farm production. The SOFI report highlights that post-farmgate activities—comprising food processing, storage, cold-chain operations, transport, and wholesale—account for 70 to 75 percent of the final price paid by consumers. Inefficient supply chains, unreliable energy grids, inadequate cold storage, and market bottlenecks in processing and logistics add up to 40 percent of total retail costs.

For the livestock and feed sectors, these structural inefficiencies dictate market reality. Feed conversion ratios, processing technologies, and logistics network resilience directly determine the final affordability of meat, dairy, and eggs. FAO and WHO officials emphasize that lowering the cost of healthy diets does not mean depressing producer prices; rather, it requires eliminating waste, upgrading transport infrastructure, and scaling up modern processing and feed management systems to reduce operational losses across the supply chain.

PROJECTIONS, RISKS, AND POLICY PRIORITIES

Looking ahead, the report warns that the window to achieve SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) by 2030 is rapidly closing. Baseline projections indicate that approximately 520 million people could still face hunger by the end of the decade. Furthermore, these models do not fully account for unpredictable disruptors, such as the lingering economic spillovers of regional conflicts in the Middle East, extreme climate events like El Niño, or systemic reductions in humanitarian funding.

To safeguard recent progress and lower the structural costs of nutrient-dense food, UN agency leaders outline several immediate policy priorities:

• Market Openness: Maintaining transparent trade for food, energy, and key agricultural inputs while avoiding restrictive export barriers.

• Input Access: Ensuring primary producers have timely access to high-quality feeds, fertilizers, seeds, credit, and water infrastructure.

• Infrastructure Investment: Targeted capital allocation into cold storage, rural transport corridors, processing efficiency, and early-warning systems.

• Targeted Social Safety Nets: Direct social protection programs to buffer low-income consumers against global food price volatility.

Achieving lasting food security requires moving past temporary relief to build resilient, high-efficiency agrifood chains. As agrifood systems navigate rising costs and geopolitical shocks, the livestock and feed industries remain central to delivering accessible, high-quality animal protein to the billions who need it most.