The 32nd triennial International Conference of Agricultural Economists (ICAE-2024), held in early August in New Delhi, focused on ‘Transformation Towards Sustainable Agri-Food Systems’.

Addressing the conference, renowned German agriculture economist Martin Qaim of the University of Bonn said that the United Nations’ 2030 target of eradicating hunger would most likely not be achieved. His comment attracted a lot of attention right away, but wasn’t it known beforehand? A common roadmap for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, both now and in the future, is provided by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was accepted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are central to it, of which Goal 2 aims to create a world free of hunger by 2030, and it is positioned next to “no poverty.”

Hunger is characterised as “more than a moral outrage” in the July 2016 issue of OFID (Opec Fund for International Development) Quarterly, which mentioned that achieving zero hunger by 2030 was a “not-so-impossible dream”. But the figures were so stunning and horrifying that they were incomprehensible. At that time, 780 million people on this planet were deprived of sufficient nourishment, three million children under five died from starvation in a single year, and 66 million primary school children were sent to class every day on empty stomachs.

Thus, how can hunger and poverty be eradicated for good by 2030? The challenges were deeply complex. It’s easy to understand that in order to meet this deadline, more than just producing enough food was required. Effective value chains and distribution networks, as well as prudent management of the planet’s finite supplies of natural resources and the successful mobilisation of all parties involved — from governments to the private sector and civil society — were also necessary.

The problems

After almost a decade, and with just six years remaining until the deadline, how are we moving towards the intended objective of zero hunger? Unfortunately, since 2015, there has been a startling rise in hunger and food insecurity worldwide. It became worse for a number of reasons, such as the pandemic, armed conflicts, climate change, and widening inequality.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2022 highlighted how, despite advancements made since the Covid pandemic and improvements in global food security, the number of hungry people worldwide increased to 828 million in 2021, up from a dramatic spike in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. According to SOFI 2022, there will be around 670 million hungry people in the world in 2030, representing 8 per cent of the world’s population, which is equivalent to the reported number in 2015. Zero hunger by 2030 is obviously a mirage.

Additionally, data from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 and the Global Alliance for Food Security underscore the severity of the food crisis and demonstrate that the world is not on track to achieving zero hunger and malnutrition by 2030.

Little improvement

Remarkably, global hunger has returned to levels not seen since 2005, and food costs are still higher in many countries than they were between 2015 and 2019. Food shortages and high food costs have been exacerbated by civil unrest, falling food production, climate shocks, growing living expenses, and conflicts.

Therefore, Martin Qaim didn’t say anything new when he stated that none of the 17 SDGs could be accomplished unless there were significant changes made to the way food is produced, distributed, and consumed worldwide. Furthermore, as Qaim also mentioned, issues with food and malnutrition are getting worse due to geopolitical unrest and climate change. “And we cannot ignore that our food systems themselves were contributing significantly to the climate crisis and several other environmental problems,” he stated.

Is it possible to achieve zero hunger in the near future, then? Beyond mere concepts and carefully worded “goals”? To address this pressing humanitarian issue, there has to be immediate focus on and concerted international efforts to address the ongoing spike in hunger and food insecurity, which is being driven by a complex interplay of variables.

Crucially, the global body should review the zero-hunger goal and, if at all feasible, reframe realistic deadlines and roadmaps. And every stakeholder ought to follow that.

The writer is Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata