GENEVA, 21st February, 2025 (WAM) -- Food security is about peace, stability, and human dignity, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, said.

According to the latest UN figures, 733 million people worldwide face chronic hunger, 2.3 billion are food insecure, and 2.8 billion lack access to healthy diets.

In a statement distributed today in Geneva, FAO said that QU Dongyu emphasised this in a letter to the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, to discuss the global geopolitical situation.

He said that conflict remains one of the greatest threats to food security, from the Sahel and Haiti to Ukraine and Gaza. At the same time, the continued neglect of agrifood systems in regions vulnerable to instability accelerates economic collapse and adds to conflict.

"In Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan, for example, the degradation of agrifood systems - intensified by policy failures - has increased tensions between farmers and pastoralists competing for limited resources."

QU Dongyu added that beyond conflict and policy failures, the intensity and frequency of extreme climate events add to the challenges. "Rising temperatures and extreme weather disrupt food production, increase risks for farmers, affect disease patterns, and accelerate migration, all of which undermine efforts to end hunger by 2030."

"These challenges threaten our ability to ensure stable agrifood systems and risk deepening global inequalities," QU noted.

The Director-General said addressing such inequalities is critical since many weaknesses in our agrifood systems arise from unequal access to innovation, technology, natural resources, and healthy diets.