According to the latest Global Food Security Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The index measures the affordability, availability, quality and safety, as well as sustainability and adaptation of food across 68 indicators in 113 countries, Statista reports.

Food insecurity is not just caused by the lack of products, but also when the price of basics rises above the point where people can afford to buy food. In a sign of the times, the Dallas Federal Reserve released a study showing US sausage sales have skyrocketed, hitting historic highs.

Analysts offer a simple explanation: people can't afford more expensive meat. Sausages, traditionally a cheaper alternative, are now seen as a symbol of an impending recession in the US.

Finland, Ireland and Norway were named as the countries with the highest levels of food security in 2022, while Yemen, Haiti and Syria had the lowest. The gap between the best and worst performers has been growing since 2019, highlighting the worsening state of inequality in the global food system. The United States comes in rank 13 out of 113, with a score of 78.0.

Food security declined the most drastically between 2022 and 2012 in Syria, falling a total of 10.5 points. It also worsened in nine other countries in that time frame, the worst of which were Haiti (-5.4), Venezuela (-4.9), Colombia (-2.2) and Zambia (-1.8).

According to the EIU, the food system’s weakening is due to a number of overlapping risks, including volatility in agricultural production, scarcity of natural resources, increasing economic inequality, a rising number of climate-induced shocks such as droughts and floods, as well as trade and supply-chain volatility. Armed conflict too is strongly linked to lower food security scores, affecting not only supply-chain infrastructure but also leading to water, soil or land contamination.

As bne IntelliNews reported, another study from the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) sounded the alarm as up to 4bn people are now suffering from poor nutrition in some of the poorest countries int eh world thanks to the impact on agriculture by the Climate Crisis and several ongoing military conflicts. Fewer people are in immediate danger of starving, but even that number is rising rapidly, according to the WFP.

A paper published in Scientific Reports in June by from the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis and the Centre for Environmental and Economic Research, at the University of Melbourne, predicted that over a billion people could be facing starvation by 2050 as a result of the collapse of agriculture if temperatures continue to rise.

The study used three models that came up with unsettling predictions of substantial declines in global food production of some 6%, 10% and 14% to 2050 that will put an additional 556mn, 935mn and 1.36bn into severe food insecurity by 2050 compared to the 2020 model baseline.

“Climate change is a serious threat to food production systems that are highly dependent on water resources and ecosystems, at multiple scales,” the scientists said. “Critical future risks include heat stress and water stress on global food production, and thus food security.”

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US food insecurity on the rise

While the US has the resources to cope with the Climate Crisis, it too has already been affected and the number of citizens facing food insecurity is on the rise there too. This summer has been the hottest on record and especially the southern states have been sweltering a record breaking heat wave that is reducing yields and has led to shortage of products.

During the pandemic year of 2020, food insecurity had already ticked up in the United States, Statista reports. Now, the inflation crisis has intensified this issue even more. It was especially families with children that suffered during Covid-19 as school lunches disappeared and they have been hardest hit again in 2022 and 2023. The USDA just published its latest report on the issue, showing that last year, almost 18% of households where children lived were food insecure, up from 17.3% in 2022 and 12.5% in 2021.

The negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic as well as the inflation crisis on food security still stayed behind those of the Great Depression between 2008 and 2011, however.

Looking at all household, 13.5% were classified as food insecure by the USDA most recently, defined as experiencing difficulty to meet basic food needs in the span of one year, including the inability to buy enough food, buy balanced meals or eat regular portion sizes as well as skipping meals, experiencing hunger and worry about food. In 2021, this share had been 10.2%.

While the share of food-insecure households rose in the US in 2023, so did the share of adults living in them – from 13.5% to 14.3%. The share of US children living in a food-insecure household rose as well from 18.5% to 19.2%. However, according to the USDA, it was often the adults in food-insecure households who restricted food intake, while attempting to shield children – especially younger ones – from negative effects.

Household with children number around 36mn in the US, around 27% of all households, while children themselves make up around 22% of US residents at 72mn.

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