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The cost of a healthy diet, an increasing trend in food price volatility amid food system shocks and a decrease in government accountability together pose as major barriers in meeting the United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Paris Agreement targets or other global goals.
The concerning trends were revealed in a first-of-its kind-analysis of 42 indicators in global food systems since the year 2000, published on January 14, 2025.
The share of the population that cannot afford a healthy diet (whose food budget is less than the cost of a healthy diet) has been on the rise, along with the population experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity. At the same time, many governments globally have not been rising to the challenge of supporting transformations in food systems.
These indicators, which have worsened globally, pull down the progress needed to achieve SDGs and other global targets.
The research, published in the journal Nature Food, was conducted under the Food Systems Countdown Initiative, a collaboration led by Columbia University, Cornell University, United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.
The study evaluates 42 key indicators of food systems, categorised into five themes:
• Diets, nutrition and health
• Environment, natural resources and production;
• Livelihoods, poverty and equity;
• Resilience
• Governance
Last year, two important reports by FAO had brought focus on the cost of healthy diets. Globally, 35.4 per cent people were unable to afford a healthy diet; 64.8 per cent of these were in Africa and 35.1 per cent in Asia, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report released in July, 2024. Another report in November 2024 highlighted that unhealthy dietary patterns cost about $8.1 trillion of the hidden health-related costs globally.
A hidden cost associated with food production, consumption and distribution, as defined by the report, is any cost to an individual or society that is not reflected in the market price of a product or a service.
Meanwhile, despite rising food production, global hunger continues to worsen, with 152 million more people facing hunger in 2023 compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Food systems impact all sectors, populations and ecosystems and are key to achieving the 2030 Agenda for SDGs.
Thus, interactions between different indicators mean that changes in one area (for example, diets) can (directly or indirectly) affect others (for example, environment).
Along with the cost of a healthy diet and food insecurity, five other indicators have been showing undesirable trends since 2000, on average globally.
Meanwhile, of the 42 indicators, 20 have been trending in a desirable direction since 2000.
These positive trends included access to safe water (essential for food security and for keeping food safe), nitrogen use efficiency, increase in yields and availability of fruits and vegetables, conservation of plant genetic resources, decline in emissions intensity for beef and milk, among others.
The remaining 15 indicators showed no change, which in a way was also undesirable. These included ultra-processed food sales, rural unemployment, food systems emissions, agriculture water withdrawal and emissions intensity of rice and cereals.