Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
Thank you all for being here.
Welcome to this special event at the 2026 high level Political form and sustainable development being held under the auspices of EcoSc, the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Welcome, also to everyone joining us online from around the world.
This event is being webcast live.
On UN TV.
My name is Skun Lasante Shia for short and I'm honored to be moderating this event ahead of the launch of this year's State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World Report, Safi, 2026.
This year's Safi Report will be launched in Rome, Italy, next Tuesday on July 21st, and the report will be available online on the FAO website.
From July 21st, just in case you are new to the Safi Report.
This is the world's most comprehensive report on global Hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition.
It is co authored by five different UN agencies, FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, WFP World Food Program, and WHO, the World Health Organization.
Safi 2026 builds on the 2025 report on global food price inflation.
This year's report examines the challenges that the high cost of healthy diets poses to efforts to end hunger, food insecurity, and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
People eating healthy food, having a healthy diet is key to achieving the sustainable development goals.
We all know the adage.
We are what we eat.
No healthy food, no health, no wealth, and so it goes.
So what's driving up the cost of healthy food and what can we do about it? We shall find out.
Before we begin, we do have simultaneous interpretation for you in all six official UN languages.
If you're here in the room with us, please just use this earsll and you can select your language of choice the screen in front of you.
Please do help share the messages you hear today on social media using the hashtag Safie 2026.
That's SOFI 2026.
And when we get to the interactive segment of our program, you're very welcome to make brief interventions, and we do encourage you to ask David here from the FAO questions about the Safie report and not just make statements alone.
Right.
We are going to be joined shortly by Ambassador Tappa, the president of Eco SOC.
He is running late.
It is a busy day for him, but in the meantime, to get a status, we have with us a Maximo Trero Cullen, Chief Economist of the FAO.
Maxima.
Thank you.
Thank you very much and colleagues and excellencies and distinguished guests.
Thank you for coming to this meeting, which is a pleasure to launch the second part of the state of food security and nutrition in the world.
Sofie normally has two parts.
The first part refers to where we stand in terms of the numbers of hunger, malnutrition, overweight and obesity and also indicators of the quantity of people that can afford to a healthy diet.
And the second part, focus on what we need to do and what are the topics that we need to focus on this year.
The idea is to focus on the cost of healthy diets.
Now, to be able to find the right solutions, we must first ask the right question.
Too often we confuse the cost of a healthy diet with the affordability of a healthy diet and the consumption of a healthy diet.
Those are three different areas of discussion.
The SOFI of this year focus on the cost of a healthy diet, which is more related to the agri food systems, as David will explain and to how we produce.
The affordability is more related to income, how much income I have.
Of course, if I have a lower cost, I can afford more, but it's more linked to income, how much money I have to buy those healthy diets.
And the adoption or consumption depends on us on our behavior.
I can have the money to buy a healthy diet, but I decide not to buy a healthy diet.
So that's a choice, that's more behavioral.
So today, again, we are focusing on the cost of a healthy diet because these three concepts are not the same.
So affordability, as I said, depends on people incomes.
Consumption depends on preferences and habits, but cost depends on how our agri food systems work.
If healthy diets remain too expensive to produce, transport, and market, no amount of income growth or nutritional education will be enough.
That is why understanding the cost of a healthy diet is one of the most powerful entry points for transforming agri food systems.
Today, a healthy diet costs 2.4 0.28 PPP dollar per person per day, about 25% more than just five years ago.
This is not simply the result of temporary inflation.
It also reflects structural weaknesses in the way our agri food systems produce, move, and deliver nutritious food.
The first lesson from our analysis is simple.
Calories are cheap, nutrition is expensive.
Staple foods provide about half of the calories we need, but account for only a small share of the cost of a healthy diet.
Fruits, vegetables and animal source foods provide most of the vitamins, minerals, nutrients, macro and micronutrients, and high quality proteins essential to grow and to have a good nutrition, yet they account for the largest share of the cost.
In other words, the foods we eat most for a healthy life are often the least affordable.
But average is the only part of the story.
Healthy diet costs differs enormously across countries, regions, and seasons.
Our analysis show that using foods that are locally available and culturally appropriate can reduce the cost of healthy diet sustainably.
In Africa, for example, local foods dramatically lower costs compared with using a standardized global basket.
We also see that the highest cost of a healthy diet is in Latin American and Caribbean.
A surprise given it's one of the biggest exporter countries in the world in terms of food and high value commodities.
So that's something that David will explore in his presentation.
Within countries, the difference are equally striking.
In remote areas, fruits and vegetables can cost more than twice as much as a major cities because of poor roads, weak logistics, and high post harvest losses.
Remember, high value commodities can perish earlier, so we need to have cold value chains.
We have good transportation to minimize this problem.
Tell us something important.
The problem is not only what we produce, it is how food moves from farms to consumers.
Our econometric analysis confirms this.
Better roads, better logistics, and lower energy cost consistently reduce the cost of a healthy diet.
Surprisingly, economic growth alone has only a modest effect.
The reason is straightforward.
70-75% of the final cost of a food is generated after it leaves the farm.
The biggest opportunity to reduce the cost of a healthy diet, therefore lies in improving storage, processing, transport, and value chains.
David will detail the scenarios that he has been developing on this.
This changes how we should think about investments.
Our simulations show that investments are differentiated, and of course, the intensity will different region by region.
But that's something that we need to focus and try not only to look at policies, but also look at infrastructure.
Policy choices matter also a lot.
Our analysis shows that subsidizing staple foods alone can actually increase the relative cost of a healthy diet because it encourages production of calories rather than nutrients.
By contrast, repurposing support towards fruits and vegetables and other nutrient dense foods makes healthy diets more affordable and improve nutrition outcomes.
But reforms must also be carefully sequenced.
It stimulates demand before expanding supply.
We saw what happened with the case of something that comes from my country, the inua.
We pushed the demand enormously in the world.
We started exporting ina, I and Peruvian to the world, and it moved so fast that we didn't have the supply and the quality supply that we should be ready to.
So sequencing matters because the region that was producing ina was a region that despite being very poor was nutritious.
They didn't have anemia, for example.
After the boom of ina, they became anemic because despite they got more income, From the exports of their products, they couldn't afford a healthy diet at that point, an equivalent to ena, and that affected them.
We're looking today also at the same problem with Andean potatoes, which is also nutritious, the Andean ones.
And therefore, the importance here and what we want to bring up is the importance of sequences.
Supply must come first, but of course, we need to have the demand, but we need to be ready if the demand is going to increase enormously.
And also, we need to assure that sustainability must remain at the center of the delivery decision.
So reducing costs by degrading soils, depleting water, resource or undermining royal livelihoods is not a solution.
It simply achieves today's costs into tomorrow crisis.
That's why our motto is good food for all for today and tomorrow.
We need to look at it tomorrow, too.
So what should we do? The evidence points to three priorities.
First, reduce costs where they matter the most across the value chain, especially after the farm gate.
Second, repurpose policies and investments towards nutritious foods in terms of reinforcing incentives that favor calories over nutrition.
And third, a strengthen evidence based through better subnational price data and greater policy coherence across agriculture health trade, and social protection.
Excellency.
The cost of a healthy diet is much more than anesthetic.
It tells us whether agri food systems are failing.
It shows us where investments will have the greatest impact, and it provides a roadmap for making healthy diets affordable for everyone.
If we can lower the cost of a healthy diet, we'll not only improve nutrition, we will build an agri food systems that are more productive, more resilient, and more sustainable.
And we will be tackling one of the major problems we have today, which is the increase of adult obesity and therefore to reduce the non communicable diseases.
So we have an opportunity before us.
Let's keep pushing on it.
Let's keep working hard.
And all the evidence that today we will be presenting in detail will show the way forward and how we can move forward.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Maximo, for giving us a context, explaining the importance of the focus of this year's SOFI report.
This really stood out for me.
70 to 75% of the cost of the food that we pay as consumers comes after food leaves the farms, right? So now with more details and evidence on SFI 2026 and what we can do about it, here is David Labour.
He is director of the FAO's Agri Food Economics and Policy Division.
David leads the team that puts together the SOFI report.
It is over to you.
And yes, it's a team effort done by different division of FAO, but also in collaboration with four other UN agencies, and it's pretty unique in the system, so good to remember it.
So yes, as Maximo has already said, you know, we wanted this year to tackle the cost of healthy diets.
And you already had the big numbers, I will say, in the sense that in average in the world in 2025, it costs every day for an adult $4.28 and cents PPP to pay for it.
So the first thing you have to keep in mind, it's already much more than the extreme poverty line of $3.
So when we talk about the number of poor people, actually, these poor people cannot even afford the healthy diets, and it's closer from the poverty line for lower middle income countries.
So what it means, it means that they only 1/3 people are just priced out of this option.
So it's not the fact that they can decide to buy them, they don't have the economic means to do it.
And with the last few years when we have seen a very strong inflation globally, this number have increased drastically by 25%.
So a lot of people around the world feel this pain and basically have to make choice.
What should I Pardon me for jumping in, David.
The President of EchoSock has just joined us, and he has to rush off.
So pardon me for interrupting.
Thank you very much for joining us.
We have here with us, His Ecellcy Lobo Tapa.
He is a permanent representative of Nepal to the United Nations and the current president of the 2026 session of EchoSock, and he's going to give us some remarks as host of this special event, Ambassador Tapa.
Thank you.
Sorry to disturb you.
I'm in the middle and because I was rushing from one meetings, I know we have another meeting to chair.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates and dear colleagues.
We often think of a healthy diet as a matter of individual choice.
But in reality, it is one of the clearest measures of weather system development reaching people's everyday lives.
When families cannot afford healthy food, the challenge is no longer only about nutrition.
It is about poverty, It is all about the inequality.
It is about health, it is about the educations, and it is about the opportunity.
And it is also about whether the promise of the 2030 agenda is being fulfilled.
That is why today's discussions is about much more than food, I believe.
Few challenges illustrate this reality more clearly than the growing inability of millions of people access to healthy diet.
This is not simply a questions of production.
It is a questioniss of access, affordability and equity.
Analysis in the 2026 SOFI report brings this reality into so focus, and it shows that a healthy diet that meets basic nutritional requirements for a dignified and productive life remains economically out of reach for more than 31% of the global populations.
For millions of families, the primary barrier is not of knowledge, but what constitutes a healthy diet, nor necessarily its availability.
It is simply unavoidable reality of price.
The global average cost stands at $4.22 per person per day.
This reality has been exacerbated by the strong food price inflation and continues to be shaped by conflicts, climate shocks, and other global disruption.
The cost of food often pushes the most vulnerable towards diets that are cheaper, that are more energy dense, and that are less nutritious, driving a silent but devastating crisis of malnutrition in all its forms.
The consequences are power reaching.
Malutrition undermines physical growth and cognitive development in Areli.
Drives non communicable digs, such as heart disease or diabetes and places heavy burdens on public health systems and impacts educational attainment and employment.
This is why the affordability of healthy diets must be understood not as a narrow nutrition issues, but as a central development priority at the heart of it being not only SDG two, but also those on health education's inequality and economic growth.
Dear colleagues, the analysis contained in the 2026 SOFI report also offers both a diagnosis and a path forward.
First, It highlights the critical importance of addressing the structural drivers of food prices, including ensuring that nutrient dense foods such as fruits, vegetables, legums, nuts, and seeds can benefit from more public subsidies.
Second, the report underscores that production is not enough.
Reducing food losses, strengthening infrastructure, and improving market efficiency must be central pillar of any strategy to make healthy diets more affordable.
Third, the analysis reminds us that there is no one size fits all solution.
Food costs differ significantly across regions.
Affordability is not about prices, it is also about people.
Policies must combine supply side measures with demand side intervention, social protection, nutrition education, and efforts to save healthier food environments.
And as we strive to make healthy food more affordable, we must ensure that efforts to reduce costs do not come at the expense of environmental sustainability or decent livelihoods.
Excellencies, colleagues.
The message of this report is clear, making healthy diets affordable is both an urgent necessity and powerful opportunity to delivery.
Tangible improvements for live people across the world.
Ecosac has an important role to play in translating global commitments into measurable results, especially for those who remain for this behind.
Agriport system transformations has been a priority of my presidency.
In February this year, We convened a special meeting of the council to advance this agenda.
Today, we focus on one of the clearest measures of the success, ensuring that everyone can afford a healthy diet.
No one should be priced out of healthy diet.
Access to healthy food is fundamental to human dignity and to our said commitment to leave no one behind.
Let us seize this moment to move from analysis to actions and to ensure that every person everywhere has access not just to enough food, but to the right food.
I thank you.
Thank you, Ambassadoraa, here here.
Let's move from analysis to action.
I understand you have to leave us soon.
Will you be able to stay for a bit or do you have to leave? No.
Thank you.
We understand you have a very busy schedule.
We appreciate taking time out of that schedule to be with us today.
I wish you all the best.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you so much.
Right.
Let's get back now to David and your presentation again.
Apologies for interrupting.
As I was saying, you know, we have these 428 cost of healthy diets, so more than the poverty line, and it's actually pricing out one third of the global population from having the opportunity to consume healthy diets.
And we have seen this strong increase in the last five years due to inflation.
And that's something that households all around the world are feeling and have to make choice about.
So what we are going to do together is to go through all the analysis we have done in SFI this year on this topic.
And basically, we want to understand why this healthy diet is so costly at the consumer.
You know, when you want to fill your plate with a diverse diet, with a balanced diet, you have to understand what has happened before.
And between the farm and the consumer, a lot of things happen, as moderator Osaka said, you know, already at maximum 75% of the price that consumer pay in average around the world comes about what is in the middle.
And so when we want to reduce this price, we will need to understand the different entry points.
And why we care about this topic, he also Osaka said, no, no wealth.
And two years ago in the State of Food and Agriculture, another flaxy publication of FAO, we put a price tag on this, and it's 8.2 trillion a year that the world is losing because we don't have healthy diets consumed by the world population.
Beyond the economic cost, it's actually nearly 12% of the death every years that are linked to poor diets.
Now, today we are going to discuss the economics of it and actually one part of the economics.
So we know that having people consuming a healthy diet, it's a much bigger challenge than just changing the price tag at the grocery shop.
But it's a necessary condition.
If you cannot pay for it, you cannot consume it.
And as we will see, we will need to do this agri food system transformation that at Fa, we talk and we come with solution to achieve it.
It's not just going to be one thing.
It's not just going to be one silver bullet that is going to reduce these cost.
And, of course, last year, when I was here, we were discussing the topic of the philosopphy that was the impact of food inflation on food security.
And in the context we are today, including with the new crisis that hit the system this year from geopolitical tension to El Nino, unfortunately, this topic is not going to disappear from the agenda of the policymaker and from the grocery bill of consumer.
So what the SI is is really to talk about this economic part.
We are not going to talk about the adoption.
We are not going to talk about behavioral change.
Actually, later this year, FAO will have another report fully dedicated to this question of healthy diets, what they really mean? What is the set of intervention needed to not only give the economic opportunity for people to consume it, giving the economic incentive of producer to produce it, but to see actual production consumption.
Today, also, we are not going to talk about affordability in the sense that, of course, depending on your level of income, the same prices are not going to have the same impact.
If food is expenses and you are poor, you sacrifice your consumption.
If you are rich, you basically don't really care about the price of food.
But this is going beyond what we can do with agriculural intervention.
But the question of inequality and economic growth is also essential.
That is another set of policies.
And we will talk about how we can spend money to actually change the system to make the cost of L diets cheaper, but I will not talk about the benefits of it.
But I already told you there is a cost of not consuming them.
And in the next few minutes, we are going to try to understand these numbers because the $4.28 per day means something, but also it doesn't mean anything.
And so we just want to make sure you will use it and interpret it carefully.
We will try to unlock why we have this high cost so to understand the problem.
And then we will identify the intervention in order also to think about how we design a reform.
So let's try to understand the numbers together.
When we talk about this cost of healthy diets, what we do is that we price a consumption basket that cover six different food groups ranging from stuffy staples, so things about rice, wheat, bread, pasta, but also fruits and vegetables, oil in fat, leguminous, and, of course, animal source food.
And then we look in each country What are the exact items that will reduce this cost in order to get this amount of food for its food group? So for example, for fruits in one country, it can be apples, in another country, banana, and that's where the local condition matters.
So it's the same structure of diets that we are going to apply around the world.
That also is aligned with the principle of what a healthy diet is, but the exact specificities depend on each country.
And we use the International price comparison program to get the information needed.
Now, what it is not? So it's not a nutrition guideline for individuals.
Don't start to look at the structure of diet and say, I have to eat that.
First, it's a benchmark for an average adult male consuming 2,330 calories.
So it's not for any specific individual.
It doesn't capture the need of a kid or of a pregnant woman, okay? So it's a benchmark to get the least cost.
We also use prices that can be measured and monitor on the market, a grocery shop, a food market.
So it's not going to take into account your own production.
You know, if you are a farmer, It's also not going to take into account what is not included in the price tag.
And as you know, there is a lot of cost today that are not reflected in the market price of food.
For instance, if around the world, very few countries are pricing water, but water has a cost for the economy, and food prices doesn't reflect this cost.
So we will need to keep this in mind when we are going to use it.
Also, and for many household, the cost of preparing the food is not included.
Okay? So that's why, you know, between buying some processed food or the raw ingredients, the difference is the time it will take your family to prepare it, and basically it's a cost.
But at least with this simple, transparent methodology, taking advantage of all the data we have, we can really build something that allowed to compare countries and to monitor the situation.
In one of the first finding, if you look at the global average, you will start to see what we can think as a paradox.
So half of the calories we need could come from sty staples.
So cereals, but they are very cheap around the world.
And so it just represents 16% of the average cost.
When if we think about animal source food, they represent 13% of the energy intake that we use for the computation of these healthy diets, but they are much more expensive, and so they represent already more than one quarter of the cost.
But one of the big issue is actually fruit and vegetables.
So of course, they are not calorie dense, and in terms of calorie, they just bring 12% of the calorie needed, but they bring you fibers, they bring you vitamins.
But today they will represent 40% in average of the cost of healthy diets.
And that's going to be an element that is going to drive my narrative today, and you will hear me talking about fruit and vegetable again and again.
Now, beyond this 428, there is variation around the world.
There is variation from one country to another.
Actually, at the world level, we have between countries where it's going to be closer to $3 per day, up to $6 But a lot of the variation are still by group of country and regions.
So we see some patterns emerging.
And if you look at the screen, you will see that in Latin America, as Maximo has reminded us, and it can be a surprise.
The initial computation is that the average price is 491.
So you see it's already nearly 20% more than the average global prices.
So on the screen, you will see the size of the circule represent the size of the cost.
But the other thing that can surprise you is that actually in a high income country, this cost is lower.
So in the part of the world where people are richer, the cost is lower.
And it already tell you something.
Having an efficient agri food system, a one that is productive, a one where loss food losses have been minimized is a way that can deliver food at a low cost to consumers.
Now, On this graph also you see the distribution of cost by food group across region.
To keep the story simple, you can look at the last line.
And what is also interesting is to see that what is driving the cost in different location is different food group.
In Asia, that's more about the vegetable.
So, the fruits.
In Latin America, that's more about the vegetables.
For instance, when you start to look at the At the numbers, you are going to see that for fruits and vegetables in high income countries, they represent half of the cost of the healthy diets compared to 40% of the world average.
But look for Africa.
For Africa, it's animal source food that is the most expensive.
So compared to the rest of the world, milk, meat, eggs are quite expensive for Africa when actually they are rich in micronutrients.
Now, beyond this even national number, we have to keep in mind also there is heterogeneity.
It changes from one part of the country to another.
And of course, bigger your country is, the more variation you are going to see.
You will also see seasonality.
The price of fruits depend on the season.
Now, if you are in a system that is well integrated with world markets, where you have cold storage, you will see low variability around the year.
And the opposite, if you are in a system that is not integrated to world markets, so you cannot arbitrate food trade on the price of fruits.
But also that you don't have cold storage.
The price of mango is very low when it is a period of harvesting the mango, and potentially, you are going to waste some of that.
And then six months after, prices are super high.
So it means that when you want to develop solution at the country level, you also need to get this additional level of information.
We need more granular level of prices, and that's what also FAO is working on in country.
So now I have already pointed to some of the drivers, and we have conduct analysis to better understand what is leading to that.
So first, we have this relation with the level of income per capita.
And what we have seen is, yes, the richer you are, actually, the lower the cost.
It's not a strong effect, but it's an important effect, and sometimes we say it's a surprising effect because we can think of pricing to markets.
If the consumer are rich, we can as them to pay a higher price.
But that's not the effect that dominate.
And actually, normally in a market where you have competition, it's not the purchasing power of the consumer that drive the outcome, it's your production cost.
And high income countries have lower production cost because they are more efficient, except in a few cases like fruit and vegetables, because that's where labor costs are going to be important.
And so we are going to see these differences amongst food group.
But to summarize, what we have seen is transportation, domestic and international, the logistics matter a lot to reduce your cost of healthy diets, even more for some of the perishable product.
Doesn't seem to be rocket science, but the number confirms what we think.
And that's important because also you have seen in few cases that numbers were surprising, and that's why we still need science to guide action.
We also saw that agricultural R&D on the long term makes the system more efficient and reduce the cost.
At the opposite, high energy prices, high labor costs, so high costs for farmers, but also all the value chain will translate into higher cost of healthy diets.
And the energy shock we do today can actually increase the cost of healthy diets more than the average cost because some of these perishable value chain need actually more energy.
So what we should do a few things, but it's going to be contextual to the product and to the location.
So we have seen that today, the average price of cereals is pretty low.
Of course, for very poor people, that's still a challenge, so we should not forget about them.
But globally, including food subsidies, all around the world, we have reduced the cost of this product.
So we have made calories cheap.
And it's an opportunity now, especially in upper middle income countries and in high income country, to start to change this and to move the support that we brought to this basic goods to actually what we really need and what we really miss.
In Africa, we need to develop the dairy sector and animal source food.
And that's going to be about building feed and efficient feed value chain.
So it means also to look at crops if we want to get animal source food cheaper.
It's going to be also dealing with cold chain, food safety norms to avoid that we have to lose part of this product that we build.
And also to make sure we maintain competition because if we develop some value chain and they are highly concentrated, for instance, this may not be linked to reduction of price for consumers.
And then the fruit and vegetables is an important topic here also with different level of intensity around the world, but we need to increase storage capacity.
We need also to bring efficient and sustainable irrigation because they can be pretty water intensive crops.
And we need to bring R&D to these particular crops because traditionally R&D was once again focusing on the basic cereals, wheat, rice, maize, above the national, the international one.
If you look about the portfolio of the CDIR during the last 30 years, it was more or 80% linked to these basic crops to address the caloric anger, but not the rest.
And also, the private sectors have invested in this because they are the big markets.
And so we need now to look at what has been neglected.
And same thing with leguminous that are important both for the nutrition point of view, but also for soil health.
And the leguminous have been neglected more or less all around the world.
So now that we have an idea about what to do and where, and we have looked at this based on the literature, based on the structure of the cost of healthy diet, we also have started to run more deeper analysis and to come with a strategy.
And in order to push down the cost of healthy diet, we are going to work on two axes that are going to interact.
On one hand, you can push the price down on the market by increasing supply.
You produce more, more availability, put price down.
But you also want to actually reduce the unit cost.
So not just to put more things on the market to oversupply the market and to bring price down, but to make sure that even the quantity that we produce today are more cost efficient.
Okay.
And these two axes are going to interact a lot.
And actually, when you increase yield by yield increase, you can produce more.
But if you also increase your yield without consuming more inputs, so through better technology, for instance, you are going to reduce the cost.
And that's what we want.
We want to optimize the system.
And in order to optimize it, it will require to do both an upgrade of the hardware, better roads, better irrigation system, better core technology, and also to update the software.
And that's where the policy framework is going to be important.
Using our subsidies in a smarter way, making sure that we facilitate trade to not get a truck of tomato waiting two weeks at the border.
But also the competition policy to make sure that if along the value chain we reduce costs, it translates in a lower price for consumers.
So this is a strategy we use our economic model to look at it because as I've said, everything is very contextual from one value chain to another, from one region to another.
So getting the number right, we cannot just talk about it.
We need to make the competition.
We need to use our economic model with mathematical structure to case by case look what to do and where.
And the first wave of result, it confirmed that actually, if we increase the efficiency, the productivity for horticulture values by 10%, we will reduce the overall cost of healthy diet by 9%.
So this is a major entry point.
The second sector globally that we need to focus on is animal source food, but also because it's very important for Africa.
Now, if you read the report, you will start to see many, many more details.
So you will see actually matrix showing, okay, where I should my intervention, is it about reducing food loss and waste or about increasing the energy supply or making sure that workers are more productive, including with training.
And you will get this nice metric that will tell you what to do and where.
And for instance, in Latin America, right now, the problem is not really the connection with world markets because a number of exporters from Latin America are very well connected, but there's still opportunity in terms of domestic connection and domestic markets can be easier to export and avocado from some Latin American countries to Europe than to distribute it within the country.
So we don't want to miss some opportunities.
And you will see also how in Africa, for instance, in the lower left corner of this graph, how reducing post harvest losses also is critical, based on existing estimates, it's 45% of the fruits and vegetables in Africa that are harvested that are lost.
So that's another missed opportunity in terms of economic value, but also access for consumers around the world.
When we look at the software and we look at the subsidies here, why we say we need to repurpose it's because On one hand, we have traditionally subsidized staples.
And if you just subsidize staples, you not only create more incentive for people to consume staples, but you are taking resources that can be used to do something else, actually fruits and vegetables to produce stable.
So if you subsidize staples, you are going to have more workers in staples, you are going to have more land put in staples, and indirectly, it's going to create higher costs for the rest.
So we need to shift these subsidies.
What we see also in the report is how globally we can act together in order to improve the rate of return of the investment.
And what we see is per dollar of subsidies is actually in Africa and in low and middle income country that we get the higher benefit for the consumers also because in high income countries, a smaller share of what is paid by the consumers is linked to what is coming from the farm.
So to conclude, The things.
First, let's think about how we design this reform because if we have the direction, the how is going to be important.
First, we need to make sure that we have a strategy, and of course, a number of measures that will boost demand are going to be important, but we need to create a supply.
We also need to make sure that we tackle the political economy.
The farmer producing vegetables, by default are not the same that produce rice.
In some location, people can move from one to another.
In other countries, that's not the same farmer, that's not the same land, that's not the same provinces.
So we need to work on this transition.
Then we need also to make sure that we don't sacrifice sustainability just to reduce the price tag in the market.
And last but not least, we need public and private partnership.
Because if the government can set the law, work on the software, at the end, the bulk of investment is going to come from the private sector, and the operation on the day to day come from the private sector.
So Maximo has already told you one of the risk of bad sequencing.
So if you create demand and you don't have the supply, prices are going to go up and you are going to price out even more consumers from healthy food.
And that's the kind of Kenoa effect that we have seen.
But also, if tomorrow basically holder income countries say, we are going to consume what we should consume in terms of fruits and vegetables and we don't create the value chain, it will mean higher cost of fruits and vegetable for low and middle income countries.
Finally, I started the presentation by talking about the hidden cost of not consuming healthy diets, but there is also hidden cost of producing them in a bad way.
You use too much pesticide and you destroy your biodiversity.
If you start to say, we are going to have very intensive chicken industrial farming, and we use a lot of antibiotics, we are going to create extra cost.
So for the consumer, it's important to reduce the price it sees at the markets, but the society has a broader perspective to keep in mind.
And that's why true cost accounting is important.
Similarly, we cannot sacrifice the right of the workers or the livelihood of a farmer just to bring the cost down in the market.
So to conclude, on one hand, to guide the action, there are three main pillars of action.
Yes, we need to focus also on the midstream.
So farmers can produce, but due to the higher share of the costs that come from midstream activity, we need to make this efficient.
We need to update the software in particular to rethink how we use the subsidies, knowing that the subsidy is not the world story, so it doesn't think that, oh, we changed a bit of subsidies problem is solved, but we need to realize an incentive, and we need to have the right sequencing when we deploy this solution.
And we have also three principles.
We need data in order to do this type of analysis, including at the subnational level.
We need the policy coherence.
I talk about transportation.
I talk about farm, I talk about R&D.
I talk about competition.
I talk about trade.
So it's not even just one ministry that is going to look at this.
So it's not just the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of food.
And we need the public private partnership.
So if my presentation was of interest for you, I invite you to join the full launch of the report on the 21st of July in Rome, where Maximo will have the pleasure to give you the whole story, including the additional numbers in terms of the recent trend in food insecurity and malnutrition.
And it's also something you can follow online.
Thank you.
Thank you, David, for that information packed snapshot preview of some of Safi 2026, some very stark figures there and region specific action steps.
We're going to take interventions from the floor now.
Again, we do encourage you to ask David questions about the Safi report versus just making statements alone.
He is here to share his knowledge.
If you'd like to speak, please press the microphone button in front of you to let us know.
We're going to get to as many as we can.
We have received some requests in advance, so we will start with those.
First up.
We have His Excellency, Dara O'Brien, Minister for Climate, Energy, and the Environment, and Minister of Transport of Ireland.
Sir, you have the floor.
Thank you very much.
It's working now.
Okay, great.
Thank you very much, Shaqs.
Thank you, Chair, and indeed to Maximon in particular to David for an excellent piece of work an excellent presentation.
Very thought provoking, very stark.
Deals with a lot of the complexities and the differences across various parts of our globe.
And I think one of the things that strikes you very much is those who afford it most are paying least and the importance of efficiencies within the system and ensuring, as well, obviously, that we've the smaller producers can be supported.
So I agree with you completely.
It's not just about subsidization.
It's about actually looking towards permanent fixes as best as possible.
And look, we really welcome this report and look forward to its publication and the high cost of healthy diets.
It's not a technical footnote to the food security agenda.
It's in many respects, it's the actual agenda itself, and when you look at the report and the high level part of it, the 2.6 billion people on our planet cannot afford a healthy diet, and the impact that that has with regard to 12% of early deaths, I think that you'd mentioned as well.
And also the same report found that global food price inflation has degraded both the quantity but also the quality of diet simultaneously.
So that's a double burden.
And that further adds to the complexity.
And You know, I believe that the choice before us is not between humanitarian responsibility and economic prudence.
In this case, the two are actually inseparable.
So, from our perspective in Ireland, we, um, We bring our history.
Our history has actually shaped our national conscience in relation to the issue of hunger, and that's in our DNA as a nation and as a people, and a corresponding conviction that we have that early evidence based action is a moral as well as a practical imperative.
And that's why I believe that this report, set out in such a stark and clear way, is so critically important and can provide a roadmap and a plan for each country.
I see when you've talked about that subnational level because there are unique attributes, not just to each continent within our globe, but in with each country, what we produce, how we produce it.
And I was very taken by, and you might expand on that further, is those additional costs, the extra costs at the end.
So it's not about just intensification of production, that we've got to try as best as possible and those who can do it in particular to produce our food in an ethical way.
And that in some areas, when there's the acute imperative of dealing with hunger, can be a difficult thing to do, and we've got to understand everyone's different perspectives.
I think in certainly not speaking on behalf of Europe, but from experience within Europe, that, you know, we have efficient in the main, efficient production methods across all the different parts of our food chain and is done in the main in a sustainable way, not completely.
But then there are other countries in other parts of the world where it's just literally the production is important to feed our people.
So I think that is something that I'm actually very, very, very struck by.
I think, um, We engaged at Rome Nutrition Week as a country last May, and we contributed directly to the discussions and happy to do that and to move that forward.
So what can we do in practical sense? And whilst I spoke against subsidization, not against it, but subsidization as a role, I think each of our countries where we can, that we made a financial commitment to the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Paris of 250 million annually between now and 26-2029.
And that is a commitment as a country that we will honor, and we intend to honor that.
So it's practical piece.
I think that David spoke to though, as well, that can be in areas of R&D.
It can be in areas of how we improve strength and supply chain, make the supply chain more efficient.
So, look, for me, I think we're not short of understanding.
It's clear.
I think the presentation and the work that's been done here shows that understanding is there.
FAO and WHO have furnished our international community with a shared unified definition of a healthy diet.
So we know what that is.
We know what that looks like.
The Safi report has furnished the methodology to actually cost it.
So when you look at the average cost, and I was struck by the figure of, I think it was $4.28 per day for a healthy diet, and then you look at the average income, you know, in many parts of our world way below that.
So the very basic of being able to have people being able to feed themselves in a healthy way is out of reach of a massive part of our population on this globe.
So, you know, we're not short of the understanding, but what remains outstanding, and I'll conclude with this is the political will to translate that understanding into investment in agriculture value chains, equitable financing architecture, and that's why I spoke of our contribution as a state there.
And every country can, you know, particularly in the developed world, every country can do more.
The data systems which allow early action to precede catastrophes rather than to follow them, so to be proactive rather than reactive.
And so With four years remaining, Madam Chairperson, Ireland does call on this forum and the international community more broadly to move from measuring the cost, which has been done in such a very stark and clear and concise way here, that measuring the cost of a healthy diet to systematically reducing it.
And I believe the work that's been done, I really look forward to the publication of the full report in Rome on the 21st, I think you mentioned of this month, is actually that each of our governments looking at this in a very clear way of what each of us can do, be it in our own country or through our own partners as well to make sure that we can start to bridge that gap and bridge that affordability gap for people.
So just to thank you again for convening the meeting to thank Maximo, to thank Dabby in particular for the really excellent presentation and the super report that you've put forward here.
Very thought provoking and must drive us to do more.
Thank you, Minister Brian, for sharing some of what Ireland is doing.
Yes, be proactive rather than reactive.
I understand you have to leave us as well.
You have to rush to another event.
Thank you for taking time to be here with us today.
And now we have Her Excellency, Ava Granado Scalano.
She is Spain's State Secretary for International Cooperation at the Council of Ministers.
You have the floor.
I'm going to speak Spanish.
Good morning, everybody.
I'm going to echo the words of the Irish minister when he spoke about political will.
When we talk about hunger and eradicating hunger around the world, we know that we face a political problem, which is not a technical problem.
I would like to thank David for the presentation because it is only with data and only with evidence that we can make the right decisions.
As a government, in this case, as the Spanish government, We wait for the Sophie report every year.
It's an important moment for us to be able to take the best possible decisions.
So thank you very much, Maximo.
It's a pleasure also for us to have had the President of Eso with us at the opening of this meeting.
I'd like to thank you for all of the information that you are putting on the table for us.
I want to be very brief.
I want to talk about governance and the importance of multilaterlism, as well to address this problem that has been put on the table, the importance of data and evidence.
It's right that we have the correct diagnosis, but what we need to be able to do is to translate it to all of the territories in question so that we can know what's going on.
I think that in Spain, In every country, big or small, this happens, and we know that in Spain, life expectancy also varies.
Your postcode determines your health determinants.
And we also know that access to high quality proteins or to fresh produce is something that is also going to depend on whether or not you are part of a vulnerable population group, whether you live in a rural area.
This happens in countries of the north in rich countries, and it happens to an even greater extent in countries of the global South.
So the importance of evidence, but also of a going through all of our decisions and making sure that they are taken in an informed way.
In Spain, watchdogs of the food chain have helped us provide fair prices for producers, for farmers as well.
And we are also working in the same way with our partner countries.
We know that if we don't have accessible and balanced diets, then we're not going to be able to achieve the aim of this meeting and the aim of the high level political forum on the sustainable development goals.
On the other hand, It is essential that we keep strengthening multilateralism.
We understand that, and last year, Spain increased by 37% its contributions to the FAO because we need more and better cooperation and more and better multilateralism.
We need the agencies of the UN system to have the capacities to be able to work with the countries that need it and to be able to work with those countries that want to contribute to that global solidarity.
Spain's cooperation shows that the most effective solutions are the ones that simultaneously address various different determinants of malnutrition and accessible diets.
We are working in 75 countries, but just to give you some examples, Guatemala, Honduras, Niger, Mozambique.
And there we have supported programs that combine sustainable agriculture, access to water and sanitation, health, the empowerment of women, but also the strengthening of institutions.
Think that a lot of what David said, what he called software, is something that involves better legislation and greater institutional capacities to be able to implement those reforms.
I recall a logistics operator that was operating in a country that allowed us to freeze fish and then distributed across the country's territory.
And there we're talking specifically about accessible, affordable diets, and how international cooperation can help get the protein to the countries and communities that are very remote.
Spain for more than 15 years has been supporting parliamentary fronts against hunger.
David also mentioned this in his presentation.
We need legislatures and parliamentary groups of all shades to agree on prioritizing this agenda.
Many of David's proposals to be able to achieve affordable diets involve regulations and budgetary commitments, and here I think that Spain's cooperation with its vision and working with the FIO, with Senates, congresses, the legislative bodies of various different Latin American and Caribbean countries, we're working with that in mind to put this agenda on the table and to make those necessary institutional reforms possible.
We are also very much awaiting the third World Parliamentary summit on hunger and malnutrition that will take place in November in Kenya.
And I think that next week when we see the entire SOFI report, that's going to be an important instrument for us being able to achieve outcomes and above all, to be able to turn this data and to turn this political commitment into concrete tangible policies and budgetary commitments.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, State Secretary, for sharing some of what Spain is doing and for your call to strengthen multilateralism and for more cooperation.
Right? Let me give the floor now to His Excecy Togolani Adré Mavura, permanent representative of the United Republic of Tanzania to the United Nations, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Madam Moderator, for giving me a flow and I should start by where you started.
We are what we eat.
And the report today presented by David shows us it's not only what matters is what we eat, not what we farm, sometimes, not necessarily what we harvest or what we stock.
It's what actually and coming to the table at the end of the day.
And that's what determines our health, our productivity, and our prosperity.
It is shocking that 2.6 billion people today are priced out as it was mentioned here, because of food inflation limited access to diverse food and structural constraints within agriculture value chains, and we commend so much foul with the team for coming up with this very evidence based report, which interrogates the narrative that we accepted as a norm before.
The picture is now clearer, the problem is so vivid, and the solutions are more defined.
By changing the lenses and metrics, the whole story has changed.
It is now evident that celebrating food security is not enough.
We should double our ambition towards food safety, food security, quality, and healthy food access.
In Tanzania, we are working closely with PAO and IFAD and WFP to address gaps in food system.
But for us, the challenge is a little more different because the problem is actually not what we talk about the price that 70% of the price increase beyond the farm gate.
For us, we're still struggling with food storage, with the post harvest loss.
We 60 40 to 60% of the food is actually not even get priced.
It's ending up there.
So for us, the two axes that we are presenting makes a lot of sense of increasing supply.
At the same time, I mean, increasing productivity and supply.
That's what we want first, and then the reform next because, yes, we can agree with you, we see a lot of subsidies goes to cereals in such a way, it's lopsided and you have a price for the things like vegetables and legumes very, very high.
And so for us, what we need to do or what we're doing is trying to face increasing productivity.
With a program that are promoting climate resilient agriculture because season is one of our problems.
When you have only producing in season, it means you have a limited productivity in the first place, attracting smart farming techniques, increasing irrigation.
We have a 780 projects along the way, and also hardware for the blue economy because we have the sea, we have the oceans, but we can't access protein because that is perishable, and that needs a lot of preservation.
And therefore, for us, we see things like roads and electricity as actually farm inputs beyond fertilizers and the rest.
So I'll say we commend this report.
We think that what we now is action to address high cost of healthy diet.
And we ask for international cooperation in improving agriculture value chain, reduce input costs, democratize food markets, and mobilize investment for the last mild infrastructure and logistics, including rural electrification to ensure access and affordability of a healthy food for all in every incumbent, in every post code and in every geography.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ambassador Mavura for sharing Tanzania's perspective and some of your challenges.
And next up, we have miss Taniwan Pamaranan.
She's counselor at the Department of International Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand.
You have the floor.
Let's wait till it.
There we go.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and good morning to everyone.
I just want to, of course, first of all, thank to the presenters, David and the FL team for their very insightful and also presentations and findings and the evidence based report.
Because of course, before coming and participating in this event, I was also trying to coordinate within my own government on this issue as well.
And you'll surprised that the Ministry of Agriculture and cooperatives or the Ministry of Health.
There's not a particular Department of Hearson talking about it and as a lot of you know, Thailand with the kitchen of the world.
So, I mean, we have abundance of food, and at the same time, for a lot of people healthy and, you know, diet for Thai people, we don't really think it needs to be like, you know, the nutrition food.
It doesn't always have to be expensive.
But actually those people who can afford more that start eating a lot of high sugar and more like, you know, Western food is processed food.
So it could also go the opposite way as well.
So of course, you know, I'm trying to understand from my country's perspective and how we could also use this report to how we could have the international cooperation with other countries and also contribute to the food security and the nutrition food of the other countries in the international cooperation as well.
So this is one thing that I think is something that Thailand could contribute to this discussion.
But of course, I know that we would need to, like, find perhaps like the mainline agency that would help us understand in terms of the technicality and the measurement as well.
So that's important.
But let me also, share some of the information that from my country likely to address the challenge of affordability of healthy diets.
What we're doing to perhaps as HRPF is also the forum to be sharing experiences and perhaps good practices.
So let's the first thing and we heard this before as well, is strengthening the integrated governance.
So we have the Thailand's National Food Committee, which provides the institutional backbone for implementing the Food Management action plan.
And to integrate food security, food safety, and nutrition policy across ministries and sector.
And this is complemented by our national plan of action on nutrition 2023 to 2027.
So together, these mechanisms anchor our efforts on availability, accessibility and affordability across the entire food chain.
The second one will be ensuring adequate and nutritious food production through evidence based planning.
So Thailand utilized provincial crop calendars.
Uh, converting agricultural production data into essential nutrition, like values to ensure sufficient and nutritious food supply across all provinces.
The third one, we empower consumers through food education and nutrition literacy.
And this is very important.
We have, food based dietary guidelines, connect nutrition policy with the food system, aligning production provision, and consumption of food, and supporting our people to access and make informed choices about healthy food at a reasonable and affordable price.
And last and not least but not least, we have, creating healthier food environments.
So we have through healthy canteen and healthy menu initiatives in schools and communities and workplaces and in close partnership with industry to reformulate products to reduce sugar fat, sodium, and sodium content.
So we try to continue to expand our healthy and affordable food choices that within reach of our people.
So these are some of the information we would share, and of course, we would welcome how to strengthen multilateralism and international cooperation on this matter.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, miss Parana and for sharing some of what Thailand is doing as kitchen of the world, as you referred to your country.
We all love Thai food.
Let's hear now from Mr.
Stoyan Tukhaov.
He is president of the Agriculture, Rural Development, and the Environment section of the European Economic and Social Committee.
So, the floor is yours.
Yeah.
Well, thank you very much.
And first of all, thank you very much for pronouncing my name.
It's not the easiest one, but you managed very well.
Thank you very much.
And now let me join the Excellencies because I want to say a big thank you to FOO, Maximo and Davit specifically because actually what we are doing, we are representing organized civil society in Europe.
We are an official institution.
So we are providing opinions.
We are sitting in between the European Commission, European Parliament, and the Council.
On different topics, and the source of information that is coming from FIO, and specifically the Sofia report, it's one of our main peers of reliable information because in the time of so much misinformation and disinformation, it's very important on what we are building on.
So we have a number of opinions related to the agri food system, and we are focusing on different sections of the agri food system.
Of course, you know, this is a key issue in European Union, but I'm going to just touch up some of the questions that actually David asked by the end.
So how we designed the reform This is a very important question for us.
So we've been working on this process a lot.
So let me first state that for access to healthy food, it's not only a nutrition issue.
It's a question of social justice, public health, and sustainable development.
And here I want to elaborate a little bit more because we have the one health approach.
It's not only health for the human beings, but it's also a health when you go through the welfare animal welfare, but also to focus on the health of the soils.
And that's why we have an opinion on the regenerative agriculture because to a certain extent we went too far by destroying the microbiome.
So now, it's not enough to be sustainable, but we have to regenerate the soils because actually our health starts there.
So second point because it was, again, provided by David, actually, 75% of the price comes from what is in the middle.
So for us, it's very important to connect the healthy diets, must be affordable for consumers while ensuring fair income for farmers and workers across the food chain.
That's why we are focusing also on the unfair trading practices.
You know, we have this legislation in Europe, and it's been updated recently.
But this is also a very important topic because 75% is huge.
So we need to take into account this.
And I don't want to keep longer, but we need to improve the transparency, and that's very important because that's why I see the role of the Sophie report.
What is happening exactly on the road between the farm and the table.
And that's why, you know, we are grateful and thank you very much looking forward for the publication next week.
Thank you, David.
Thank you, Mr.
Chicana, for sharing that perspective from the European Union, including how you're designing reform that approach the one health approach, right? One the health of people, the health of animals, and the health of soil makes complete sense to me, and the call for transparency there as well.
So thank you.
Over now to miss Belinda Chanda.
She is partnership officer at the World Food Program, which is one of the five agencies that co authored the Safi Report, miss Chanda.
He's got to locate your microphone.
There you go.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
I would like to begin by thanking David and Massimo for paving the way to the launch of the SOFI report.
As a partner, we're excited for it and also recognize that it is an evidence base that most partners rely on in order to design policy.
I would like to emphasize here that the diet cost and affordability metrics play an important role in helping us understand the extent to which the availability and affordability of nutritious foods constrain access to healthy diets.
For those who can afford a healthy diet, the challenge is often less about cost and more about creating conditions that make healthy choices easier and more affordable.
However, the estimated 2.6 billion people that have been priced out, as was said by our representative from Tanzania, who cannot afford even the lowest cost healthy diet, including many of the people WFP serves and helps governments reach, affordability remains the primary barrier.
For those populations, diet costs and affordability metrics are particularly important.
First, they help identify who is most affected by the unaffordability of healthy diets, both geographically and across the life cycle.
This is particularly important for groups with higher nutritional needs such as pregnant women and young children who are at greater risk of poor nutrition and health outcomes when healthy diets are out of reach.
Second, they help understand the depth of an affordability.
There's a significant difference between being able to afford, for example, 80% of the cost of a healthy diet versus only one third of it.
In the latter case, households may struggle to afford enough food to meet even their most basic needs, let alone consume a healthy diet.
Understanding the size of that gap is critical for the designing of appropriate responses.
Third, they help identify solutions to improve affordability and bring healthy diets within reach of vulnerable populations.
This may include reducing the cost of nutritious foods through improved productivity and value chains, increasing the nutritional value of foods through fortification, or strengthening purchasing power through income generating opportunities and cash assistance.
They also provide a common evidence base that helps mobilize action across sectors and stakeholders.
This is how WFP has been using diet costs and affordability metrics through our flagship fill the nutrient gap analysis since 2016 in more than 50 countries.
We're also working with the Cadre Hamanose, the regional framework used across West Africa and Central Africa to analyze food and nutrition security, to monitor the cost and affordability of nutritious diets, helping identify a worsening food security and nutrition situation early and bring greater attention to diet quality within food security analysis and decision making.
Building on this experience, in 2025, WFP launched an open access version of Enhance, a user friendly online analysis platform developed in partnership with the Zero Hanger lab.
To analyze the costs and affordability of healthy diets and assess the potential impact of different policy and investment options.
Through a user friendly platform, it supports evidence based decision making on affordability, nutrition, dietary diversity, and environmental sustainability.
It's important to note here that to date, this has been used in more than 25 countries and has attracted over 250 registered users, many from outside of WFP and including government and technical staff.
Lastly, I would like to mention that these metrics help move the conversation from measuring the problem to identifying solutions, providing governments and partners with the evidence needed to make healthy diets more affordable and accessible for the most vulnerable.
Thank you.
Thank you, miss Chanda, for sharing WFP's perspective and some of your extensive experience on the ground.
And now I would like to give the floor to the representative from Resil, which is a part of the global soil partnership.
You are sitting at microphone 2910.
I believe we got to activate that microphone.
There we go.
You have the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity of sharing my project and some questions about the things we covered today.
My name is Yun, and I'm from Singapore, and I founded a soil regeneration initiative called Resoil because I share views with the representative from the European Union about soil where it really plays an important role in connecting healthy diets and sustainable development.
Um, as we have heard from doctor Laboorde, we know that still a large proportion of people cannot afford healthy diets, and we know that food price inflation peaked at 30%, that 10% rise in food prices can also increase child wasting by up to 4.3%.
With these in mind, resil transforms organic vegetation waste into nutrient rich soil using community composing systems and AI powered soil monitoring, tying together the infrastructure and software, forming a technical positive loop.
With this in mind, Singapore still generates about 2 million kilograms of waste daily.
Yet initiatives like Project Black Gold and Bokashi in collaboration with AIM of resoil resil composting stations in HDB estates demonstrate that the waste can be transformed into reproductive growing medium.
And depending on Singapore also depending on imports for over 90% of our food, I believe that rebuilding soil isn't just an environmental goal, as it's for food security imperative and directly aligned with Singapore's 30 by 30 strategy.
Therefore, my question would be, what role does FEO see for youth led technology enabled waste to soil programs in national strategies to reduce the cost of healthy diets, particularly in small island developing states and land scarce urban nations in collaboration with implementation of modern vertical farms? And what role would this process be in tackling the problem of unaffordable diets if put into practice in other parts of the world? Thank you so much.
Thank you for sharing resoil perspective, and Bravo, for your soil regeneration initiative.
David, would you like to take that question? Yes.
Thanks, first of all, all the comments and I think also all the testimonies we get from countries that show the different reality, the different priorities that we also have tried to capture in the report.
But I think there is this common understanding about how important it is and then how you need to contextualize.
So now, in order to get where we want to go, yes, innovation is going to be important in order to grow better crops, in order to tackle thing that we have not really solved yet like soil health, to also make sure that we are protecting the food on the farm and after the farm.
And that's why, you know, bringing this innovation, but also understanding, you know, I would say the local context, the traditional knowledge in order to combine the past and the future is going to be important.
Now, I think also the youth play a particular role because they are the new generation of consumers, and that will be important in this also about their priorities, but also the new generation of producers.
It's going to be also very important, I think, when we look at these different generation of farmers and that yes, maybe your father were growing rice, but your future may not be in rice.
It can be in pulas, it can be in integrating rice and fish.
And so what we want to do, and we know that we want to facilitate this.
We need also to make sure we can facilitate this transition and for the next generation to have access to investment, to have access to finance because some of the innovation also cost money to deploy.
And we know that for young farmers, the access to finance can be an issue because we don't have capital, we don't have collateral role.
So that's where the policy space is going to be important because the innovation without the enabling everyone will just remain an innovation.
So that will be my entour for now.
And of course, Maximo may want to.
Specific issue because you ask about seeds, small island development states specifically, and seeds are mostly import dependent countries.
They import most of the food they consume.
And when we look at the analysis of where trade, for example, could create some issues concerning quality of diet.
Seeds always pop up as the types of countries that normally have overweight and obesity.
As a consequence of their huge import dependency on foods.
So here, what you are mentioning in terms of vertical farming and also horizontal farming in the case of seeds, something is a possibility, but the issue is a little bit more complex because you need to find sources of energy that will make it cost effective.
Right now, in many of the seeds, they are using the electric grid to work in vertical farming, and that's not cost effective at all.
So again, here is where solar technology is another diversification.
To help to minimize those costs so that you can become efficient in the way you produce, but you need to start looking, and one of the works of FAO is to try to find ways in which we can diversify and reduce as much as possible the import dependency of seeds, which includes, of course, the diversification of diets.
And then the second element, which is important in the case of seeds, is because of the tourism and the way you operate with tourism, there is a significant amount of waste, and that's something that also can be work intensively to minimize those.
Thanks, Maximo.
Thanks, David.
Let's hear now from the representative from Switzerland.
We have to again locate your microphone, and there you go.
Yes.
Thank you very much to the AAO for this very important report and for today's discussion.
The report gives us valuable evidence and helps us better understand one of the biggest challenges in today's world.
I would like to share one reflection from the perspective of Switzerland, also from my work as Director of domestic programs of cartas I work for in Switzerland.
We often say that healthy diets are expensive, but I think we should also remember that unhealthy diets are even more expensive.
The SoF Report 2024 shows that unhealthy diets lead to productive losses of around 8% of the global GDP.
This means that making healthy diets affordable is not only a social issue, it's also smart economic investment.
In Switzerland, we believe that this challenge needs an integrated approach.
Agriculture, health, social production protection, and food policy all need to work together.
Through our international cooperation, Switzerland supports sustainable food systems, better nutrition, and stronger local agriculture.
We also support better data and measurement so that more informed policy decisions can be made.
From my work at Caritas, I also would like to add one practical example.
Even in a rich country like Switzerland, around eight to 15% of our people live below the national poverty line and face difficulties to afford a healthy diet.
Through markets that we have, people with very low incomes can buy healthy food and everyday products on much lower prices.
This is possible because we work together with supermarkets, producers, and many other parters, and I think it shows that partnerships between government, civil society, and private sector can make a real difference.
But our experience also shows that affordable food alone is not enough.
People also need a decent income and a strong social protection.
Otherwise, healthy food will remain out of reach for many families.
My question or also maybe it's a rhetorical question is, how can we better show Minister of Finance of economics and investors that making healthy diets affordable is not a cost, but one of the best long term investment in health, economic growth, and sustainable development? And how can we strengthen partnerships that help make healthy diets affordable for everyone? I really hope we can continue to work on that, and I want to thank you all for the important work and the discussion for today.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for sharing the perspective of Switzerland and some of your work with Caritas.
As you said, unhealthy diets cost more than healthy food.
As David said earlier, 8.2 trillion a year is lost economically because of the lack of healthy diets.
David, did you want to answer that question? Yes, I do.
To say this is not a problem.
This is a problem.
We know the size of the problem.
So it's already a big problem, and there is a real economic value behind it.
Now, what we face is an intertemporal challenge.
The cost of food today is something that you see.
The cost of an healthy diet is something you are going to see over the years, both as an individual, you know, and you start when you are students and university, okay, you don't have so much money.
Are you going to eat cheap food, maybe an healthy? Yes, even if you are going to be sick in 30 years.
Okay? So that's what we need to address, you know, how we make a system where with better information, people are better informed, but also we can deal with this issue.
And you were saying, you know, income is important.
Safety net is important, especially if at some period of your life, you may not have the income that allow you to make the better choice tomorrow.
But of course, working with prices, it's important.
Now, you are raising the question of Ministry of Finance.
So as I've said, bringing the numbers is a key step.
We can make the economic argument over the long run.
But I think that's where financial markets will have a role to play and all the finance, both public and private.
Because what is the link between today and tomorrow if you are Minister of Finance is the cost of your debt, is your interest rate.
And the big challenge we face is today, if a country invests in healthier diets, better nutrition for kids, better information, more sustainable agri food system, fighting poverty for farmers that will continue to operate in 20 years, the financial system today is myopic.
They will say, I don't take this into account in the notation I put on your debt.
I don't reduce your cost of borrowing.
You should do the right thing for tomorrow.
I just look at your debt today.
And that's where working with the financial sector, including the international financial institution, but also the private market making this that this is a cost for the economy tomorrow.
This is where maybe tomorrow we will not be able to pay back the debt.
If we don't invest in the proper things today, that will be the stronger argument.
So today, as FAO, we bring the evidence.
We bring also the solution, just to say that it's not like if we can do nothing, now we can do.
But for the last miles, I mean, the last price tag is going to be on the cost of public money on public debt.
And I think that's where collectively, pricing the future is a big challenge.
Thanks, David.
And now, let me give the floor to the representative from Israel.
There we go.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thanks to the FAO and the speakers that we have today.
I wasn't planning on making a statement, but looking at the screen and the relative costs of the various food groups and then listening to some other interventions on models that have been run various scenarios and perhaps food production culture is changing.
It got me to thinking or wondering whether there have been models run or, uh, or experiments with trying with a deliberate shift among populations from what was termed high quality proteins to being vegetable sourced, high quality proteins to see whether that could improve both the affordability of the food, say, with various mixes of legumes and rice, affordability and security wise because, of course, these can be dried and stored, and so perhaps wouldn't be subject to the same losses that meats might.
So I was just wondering what that could do regarding the availability of high quality proteins, the affordability and security.
Thank you.
Thank you for that question.
David, would you like to take that? Yes.
So I think when we look at this, obviously, beyond the proteins, we are interested in what is the micronutrients that are associated with them.
I mean, when we eat meat, we just don't eat proteins, actually, in the world, for most people that eaten enough coids also eat proteins.
And for many people in Hankong country that are eating too many calories, we're also eating too many proteins.
So what we want is to make sure that we have this good food bringing all of that.
So first, we have also the issue that leguminous, for instance, that were a traditional source of protein and actually other elements have been neglected over the last, I would say 30, 50, 60 years since the Green Revolution.
And in most countries, if you look in most, you know, healthy diets around the Mediterranean area, actually, for instance, leguminous were part of most of these diets.
Traditional diet, they were culturally appropriate, and then we have forgotten.
But we have not just forgotten because people have thought about something else.
It's because we didn't invest in R&D.
We didn't make them convenient to consume.
Now, if you have to spend 2 hours cooking your chickpeas, you may go for a piece of bread.
Okay.
So we have to take this into account.
So that I would say we have the traditional solution that are going to be part of it.
And actually gainers also good for the soil, so to address some issues.
So there is benefit to good to go for what we already know.
And then when we talk about innovation, yes, we are building new product.
We can have crop based product or mixed product also between animal source food and crops that can answer these needs.
Now, I think it's where the context is important and where the cost also is important because these new technology are still not price competitive with a more traditional product.
So policymaker can aim to make them more competitive, but they will still not be competitive today, so it's more long term.
They are also not replacing the micronutrient that you can get from animal source food naturally, so you need to process them.
So you need to fortify them.
So you know to get B 12, to get calcium, that's not all the crops that are going to have them.
So are you doing biofortification? So basically, editing even their genetics to increase their micronutrient contents.
But also different countries, different society have different cultural opinion on them, I would say.
And then when you process them, we want to make sure that also you are not creating the same problems with this new product that you are with the old one.
So you don't start to put more sugar on salt to get them more tasty, okay? That's always the food processing.
So definitively, these food innovation are part of it, but I think we also need to think about the traditional one.
And what we know from this crop based solution, yes, they can reduce the amount of water or the amount of emission associated with them.
But they are not option ready for all countries.
Last but not least, some of the solution also, just in terms of processing need more energy, and there the cost of energy is going to be important.
So we just have to be pragmatic to think what work in which context.
Obviously, you have some countries that have a lot of water, have no problem to grow things in the field.
You have some countries that have less water and need to find option.
And this is true for the actual cost and the hidden cost of what we consume.
Thank you, David.
And now let's hear this will be our last intervention from the floor, I believe, from the NGO Plant based Treaty.
You are sitting at microphone 2012.
We will just get your microphone activated.
Thank you.
Hang on a minute.
It needs to turn red.
There you go, please.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I really appreciate the last question.
I have a very similar question.
I was wondering, like the IPCC land use report did, it looked at different diets like vegan, vegetarian, Flexitarian, Mediterranean, low on red meat and things, and then looked at the greenhouse gas savings, and the vegan diet by far was the best at eight gigatons carbon equivalent savings per year.
I was wondering if the FAO in their report and could also do different scenarios, as the previous speaker from Israel mentioned.
I think it's very important to look at different scenarios because your initial assumptions will determine your outcomes and conclusions and your recommendations.
So, for example, with respect to health, I'm from Canada.
We have science based dietary guidelines, and the glass of milk was replaced by a glass of water.
And to say that there are regions of the world that are not consuming enough milk and meat, I think is not it's an economist assumption that I don't think is based on science.
And, you know, there's economists that have said that there are areas of the world that are under polluted and that we need to, you know, move our toxic waste to under polluted areas.
So I think it comes in that tradition.
And I think, you know, there are a lot of Western corporations which are, you know, trying to uh, you know, develop markets where people are eating fairly healthy plant based diets.
There's a famous study called the China study by doctor Campbell, which showed that China had much healthier diets a few decades ago, and now they now there's a growing problem of non communicable diseases.
So my question for you is, can we please, you know, look at other scenarios like the IPCC does and what the implications are for cost, as the previous speaker mentioned, um, As you know, the Danish government came up with a first ever Danish action plan for plant based food in 2023.
And they also have a grants program, and they're developing a value chain for lentils, which they haven't grown previously.
We're in New York City.
The previous mayor Eric Adams had a campaign, a public education campaign called Eat a Whole Lot More Plants, because he reversed his type two diabetes by eating a whole plant based diet is covered in his book, healthy at last.
The current mayor, Madani, is also promoting, you know, plant based professionals in his office.
And there are also cost savings.
They did in the 11 public hospitals in New York City, they introduced plant based by default, and there was over 90% satisfaction, 50% uptake, and a half 1 million in savings in one year.
So there are also cost savings with whole food plant based.
And so I would strongly recommend that the report from the FAO look at different scenarios.
I don't think it's fair to have a male, one male eating so much meat, grains, fruits, and vegetables as your starting point because that determines the recommendations.
Thank you.
Thank you for your perspective and for your question, David.
Yes, first, I don't think that any economists, I say, put your waste in another country, that would be a good idea regarding health.
Okay? So I just think that as economists, we try to see what is cost efficient to achieve the objective that the society has.
We are not writing the food based dietary guidelines.
In the structure of the diet, you see, it's actually the average of more than 30 dietary guidelines from around the world, all based on science.
So we can agree or disagree.
I can tell you that I spent enough time with nutritionists to the story of the glass of milk has very different opinion, including in the medical profession beyond the nutritionist.
So I'm not going to question it.
Now, our point is to say, We and I started with that.
This is not a nutrition guidelines, okay? This is based on what the world call a healthy diet today, based on what countries are defining in average has a healthy diet today, not fOul countries.
This is how much is cost.
And so we have a story about cost.
And the point is to say, this is already very costly.
And obviously, even luminous today are super costly.
That's a fact.
If they were super cheap, people were consuming it.
There is no hatred of people for k bees or beans, anything like this.
It's just they have been made not so convenient and they are still expensive because they have been neglected.
And that's what we say.
So starting to ask people to even go for more expensive product will increase the cost even more.
And this is your story about cost.
We need to bring it down, and we need to bring it down about what also is locally appropriated.
And if I think about a lot of, I mean, our colleague from Tanzania has left, but, I mean, if you go to rural area in many low income countries, finding the type of food we can have access to in New York to do the substitution is just not feasible.
We are very lucky here.
We go in the street, we buy cereals.
All the cereals are actually supplementation in calcium or B 12, if you want.
And yes, getting this is an option that we have and can be good for the environment, not too expensive, and so on.
You go to Soft Kivu, you go to Malawi, we are in a very different elements.
And what the farmers are producing, in many cases, what they will consume, and they will not get access to that.
So having a few chicken with eggs is actually something that is good for their kids because stunting and wasting is still a reality.
Macron deficiency is a reality.
The poor people have actually a crop based diet.
I can bring you to community where they will not even an egg before 7-years-old.
And this egg will be given to the boy, not to the daughter.
And so we need to make sure that we can level the playing field with solution that will change the life of people today based on their reality.
So that way, I think, you know, getting these different situation and from New York or Canada to Bamako or to Tonga Islands, we need to be flexible here.
The report is about seeing how we can reduce the cost.
Leginus I think is really something we all agree on that today has been neglected.
Today at a higher cost.
That's something that everyone can consume.
And that's already, you know, lowing fit we need to fix.
And after, we need to get flexibility because there's different type of diet, there's different cultural norm.
The consumer of tomorrow is not the consumer of today, and this has to evolve.
Thank you, David.
Let's get closing thoughts now.
First from Maximo.
Now, very briefly, thank you all for being here.
So let me put some headings to topics that we have been talking.
First, there is no universal solution, and that's where we need to look at the composition of those healthy diets in each of the different regions and countries.
I think that the graphs and the figures shown by David across different regions of the world is something that show us the importance of looking at these in this specific context.
Second, we must connect at some point, we are always, but we must connect the cost also with affordability.
That's a different dimension that we are looking at this publication that we will be launching on healthy diets that will be launched by the end of this year, which focuses on both cost, affordability, and also consumption.
So I think the three elements are central in the process.
In this report.
As we said, we are focusing on the cost of healthy diets based on the definition of a healthy diets, which the core behind the definition is diversity.
Third, we need to diversify where nutrition comes from.
So fruits and vegetables remain essential, but they are also not the only solution.
Legums and non nutrient rich foods can provide affordable sustainable sources of protein and micronutrients while improving soil health through biological nitrogen fixation.
But of course, for some parts of the world, we also need to bring proteins through terrestrial animals, and there has been a lot of scientific work that we have been doing in FAO as part of the Committee on livestock.
Fourth, there is no single global diet appropriate for all countries.
And this is where many of other reports have failed in the sense that they fixed the diet, and that's a mistake.
The diets and the elements of the healthy diet will vary country by country, and that's a little bit what we are trying to emphasize here.
A vegan diet is healthy diet as long as it is well planned, and that's not easy, as you well know.
So we need to look at it very carefully, and we need to see what are the requirements for it to become a healthy diet.
That's not the fault.
The same applied for other diets around.
So the scientific consensus from the World Health Organization, FAO, and the Academy of Nutrition and Aetics and our national nutrition Policies is that well planned vegan diets can be healthy and nutritional adequate for most people.
However, it is not automatic.
It will be healthy by itself.
It requires a lot of work to be able to plan it carefully, and in many cases, it's not affordable to many people because of the lack of the inputs that are necessary for that.
Finally, I think one of the issues that became so important here is that every decision we make today sharpen the affordability of healthy diets for tomorrow, and also every decision has this intertemporal importance, and that's the question of the Ministry of Finance.
If you want to talk to a Ministry of Finance, normally they will think in the current moment.
They don't think in the tomorrow.
And that's where we need to change.
There has been very successful stories for working with ministers of Finance to understand the evidence on how the tomorrow matters for the costs and their own budgets have made them make very good decisions, and that's the history behind everything related to budgets by incentives.
So again, I think the evidence that this report is bringing and the importance of this diversity of diets and looking at the cost and how the agri food system changes can help to show how we can minimize those externalities linked to the health issues, the non communicable diseases, but also how it can create income to farmers and can ensure that we can have also the affordability will be essential.
It will keep people at the center.
It's important, and we recognize the diversity of countries.
We need to invest where the evidence tells us, and here is where we need to bring not only public sector, but also the private sector, the AFIs to try to create this as an attractive investment because the goal will have substantial returns both in today but also in the tomorrow.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Maximo.
Thank you, David.
You've given us a lot to think about and some concrete action steps today.
It is clear, unfortunately, there is no silver bullet, no one size fits all, no universal solution.
But with your will, your commitment, and properly synchronized targeted action, it is possible for many more people around the world to eat healthy, lifesaving, life giving food.
Let's keep working together to do better.
Many thanks once again to all our speakers and to you, our audience, for being here.
For being part of this crucial conversation, thanks also to our online audience.
And again, do stay tuned for the Safi 2026 report, which will be available on the FAO website from next Tuesday, July 21st.
That brings us to the end of this special event.
You are welcome to come back to this conference room at 1:15 P.M.
For the next event that the FAO is hosting.
It is on Agri Food Systems in the current global context opportunities, risks, and solutions.
Again, thank you all very much indeed.
Thank
ECOSOC
Economic and Social Council
Special Event on The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026: Understanding and Addressing the High Costs of a Healthy Diet
Organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Liaison Office with the United Nations.
Description
Every year, this most intensely scrutinized of FAO's reports presents the headline number of undernourished people around the world, while advocating for strategies against hunger and malnutrition. Following publication of the global report, a wealth of statistics is disaggregated into regional reports. SOFI is jointly produced with fellow UN agencies IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO.
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