GLOBAL FOOD POLICY REPORT 2024

The report, released by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), is themed around ‘food systems for healthy diets and nutrition’.

• Malnutrition Remains a Persistent Global Challenge: While progress has been made in reducing undernutrition, overweight, obesity, and diet-related non-communicable diseases are on the rise worldwide, requiring a major transformation of current food systems.
• Healthy Diets Remain Unaffordable for Billions: Healthy diets cost more than $3.75 per person per day on average globally, putting them out of reach for an estimated 3 billion people.
• Policy Action is Needed Across Food Systems: Policies and investments are required across food production, processing, retail, and consumption to make healthy diets accessible, affordable, and attractive to consumers.
• Innovation and Technology Can Enable Healthier Food Systems: New technologies, business models, and digital tools have the potential to improve nutrition, sustainability, and equity across food value chains.

Recommendations:

1. Reorient Agriculture and Food Production: Shift subsidies, research, and extension to support diverse, nutrient-dense crops and sustainable production practices.
2. Improve Food Processing and Retail: Regulate unhealthy ingredients, promote nutritious products, and incentivize retailers to increase availability of healthy foods.
3. Empower Consumers for Healthy Diets: Implement comprehensive behavior change communication, food labeling, and social protection programs.
4. Strengthen Food System Governance: Coordinate cross-sectoral policies and multi-stakeholder partnerships to align food systems with health and nutrition goals.
5. Increase Financing for Nutrition: Significantly scale up domestic and international public and private investment in food system innovations for healthy diets.

Key Findings:

• Climate change and biodiversity loss can have complex and interconnected effects on diets, affecting food availability, diversity, etc.
• More than two billion people, many of them in Africa and South Asia, cannot afford a healthy diet.
• Around 38 percent of the Indian population ate unhealthy foods.
• As a result of poor diet, 16.6% of Indians suffer from malnutrition (2021).

About IFPRI: Established in 1975, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is a research center of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers.