The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2026
Understanding and addressing the high cost of a healthy diet
The 2026 edition of the annual SOFI report from FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO examines why healthy diets remain out of financial reach for nearly one in three people worldwide – and what it would take to bring their cost down. The report highlights that global hunger declined for a third consecutive year, and the prolonged rise in hunger in Africa has come to a halt. But progress on maternal and child nutrition remains far too slow, and in some areas is reversing. This year, the report also introduces monitoring of diets among children and women through the SDG indicator on dietary diversity – a key characteristic of healthy diets.
Key Findings
- Hunger: An estimated 645 million people faced hunger in 2025 – 7.8 percent of the global population, down from 8.1 percent in 2024. That is nearly 14 million fewer people than in 2024 and 43 million fewer than in 2022.
- Food security: About 2.1 billion people – 25.8 percent of the global population – were moderately or severely food insecure in 2025, nearly 86 million fewer than in 2024.
- Dietary diversity – remains inadequate globally for both children and women: Only 30.8 percent of children aged 6–23 months consume a minimally diverse diet, a prevalence level largely unchanged over the past decade. Among women aged 15–49 years, 62.7 percent meet minimum dietary diversity.
- Stunting: The prevalence among children under five fell from 26.4 percent (180.4 million) in 2012 to 23.2 percent (150.2 million) in 2024 – but progress is insufficient to reach the 2030 target of 16.8 percent.
- Wasting and overweight: Wasting declined from 7.4 percent in 2012 to 6.6 percent in 2024, short of the pace required to reach 5 percent by 2030. Childhood overweight rose slightly over the same period, from 5.3 to 5.5 percent, and is rising sharply in Oceania.
- Breastfeeding: The percentage of infants under six months exclusively breastfed rose from 37.0 percent in 2012 to 47.4 percent in 2024 – improving in all regions with data, but not yet fast enough to meet the updated global ambition of 60 percent.
- Anaemia: The prevalence among women aged 15–49 years rose from 27.6 percent in 2012 to 30.7 percent in 2023 and is projected to reach 32.6 percent by 2030 – moving further from the target of a 50 percent reduction.
In Focus: The Cost of a Healthy Diet
- The global cost of a healthy diet rose to 4.28 PPP dollars in 2025, up from 3.44 PPP dollars in 2021 and 2.94 PPP dollars in 2017.Animal source foods, fruits and vegetables account for nearly 70 percent of the total cost of a healthy diet, while starchy staples contribute only around one sixth despite providing half the calories.
- Post-farmgate activities – processing, logistics and wholesale – account for 70 to 75 percent of what consumers pay for food. Improving efficiency at these stages is essential for lowering the prices of the perishable foods that make up healthy diets.
- Reducing costs requires context-specific action: tackling high animal source food costs and cold chain deficits in Africa, improving transport and reducing vegetable costs in Latin America and the Caribbean, and strengthening post-harvest handling of fruits in Asia.
What Needs to Happen
The report calls for targeted, complementary interventions to bring down the cost of a healthy diet:
Redirect agricultural research and development Orient public investment towards fruits, vegetables and legumes – the nutrient-dense foods that drive up diet costs – supported by seed delivery, water management, land tenure, finance and extension systems that enable farmers to adopt new technologies.
Fix the middle of the value chain Invest in transport, storage, processing and cold chains, where up to 40 percent of value chain costs accumulate. Reducing post-harvest losses of perishable foods directly lowers consumer prices.
Repurpose agricultural subsidies Seventy percent of global agricultural support to producers is tied to grains, sugar, dairy, beef and oil crops. Directing public spending towards higher-cost food groups is far more effective than broad support to already low-cost staples.
Strengthen trade integration Trade liberalization is associated with overall lower food prices. Improving trade integration and trade facilitation, alongside domestic production, helps expand the supply of nutritious foods.
Protect vulnerable groups through the transition Cost-reducing reforms are redistributive. They require transition support and inclusive public–private collaboration so that smallholders, women and youth benefit – and must not come at the expense of environmental sustainability, public health or decent rural livelihoods.
Invest in granular price data National annual averages mask major variation across locations and seasons. Frequent, subnational price data are needed to design timely, well-targeted policies.
