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Food security through healthy, resilient, plant-rich food systems

Why producing more isn’t enough, and what policymakers can do instead

November 2026

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

World Food Summit, 1996

Food security is often understood as a question of agricultural production. It’s true that production is an essential part of food security, particularly in regions where food availability remains inadequate. However, producing more food alone is not sufficient to ensure that all people have physical and economic access to healthy food.

Food security is also shaped by what type of food is produced, how agricultural resources are used, how food is distributed and priced, what food is available in people’s food environments, and the affordability of healthy foods. Geopolitical unrest, economic shocks, biodiversity loss, climate change and extreme weather events, and growing socio-economic inequalities further threaten the stability of food supplies and access to nutritious food.1

Delivering better food and nutrition security outcomes requires interventions that go well beyond increasing food production.

Global hunger is declining, yet food insecurity persists

Global hunger has declined for three consecutive years. Moderate or severe food insecurity also declined in 2025. However, recent and ongoing geopolitical crises and extreme weather phenomena are projected to destabilize food security, supply chains, and economic stability worldwide, exposing the fragility of such progress. Even if recent progress were maintained, it remains insufficient to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.2 The number of people experiencing severe food insecurity is projected to exceed one billion by 2028.3

Malnutrition also remains widespread in both the Global North and the Global South, making it an issue all political leaders must care about and address.4

People and community icon

2.1 BILLION

people – around 1 in 4 globally – faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025.5

Food and taste icon

645 MILLION

people – 7.8% of the global population – experienced hunger in 2025.6

Health icon

16.2% OF ADULTS

and 5.5% of children under five are living with obesity, a global record high.7 8

Source: SOFI 2026; WHO 2025.

Producing more food won’t solve food insecurity

Agricultural land and other natural resources are finite. Addressing all dimensions of food security requires using resources efficiently to provide nutritious, accessible, and affordable food.

We already produce enough food to feed a growing global population,9 10 but one-third of food globally is lost (13.2%)11 or wasted (19%).12 At the same time, regional and national food systems around the world tend to oversupply animal-source foods while undersupplying plant-source foods compared to global references for healthy sustainable diets.13 14 15 This gap between food availability and guidance on healthy sustainable diets could undermine efforts to shift consumption patterns, impede progress toward climate and biodiversity targets, and contribute to food insecurity.16

What happens to all the food we grow
Reaches people67.8%
Lost13.2%
Wasted19%
Lost = before it reaches shops · Wasted = at retail and in homes
Source: FAO (2025); UNEP (2024)

Around 80% of global agricultural land is used to produce animal-sourced food, and 40% of global cropland is used to produce feed for livestock,17 yet livestock only provides a limited share of the world’s protein needs. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that producing 1 kg of edible protein requires between 2.1 and 3 kg of human-edible feed protein, depending on the species.18 Reducing competition between livestock feed and human food, and shifting to healthy, sustainable diets rich in plant-based foods could substantially increase the number of people supported by existing agricultural land.19 We must therefore prioritize the use of our land to grow food for direct human consumption, while urgently addressing food waste and loss along the whole value chain.

How global agricultural land is used, and what it could feed
≈17bn
people could be fed on today’s farmland under a fully plant-based scenario
modeled scenario — Chatzimpiros & Harchaoui 2023
How farmland is used today
Agricultural land for animal-source food80%
Cropland used to grow livestock feed40%
Source: Chatzimpiros & Harchaoui (2023); Poore & Nemecek (2018)
Human-edible feed protein needed per 1 kg of edible output
Poultry meat2.1 kg
Eggs2.3 kg
Pork2.6 kg
Cereal-fed beef3.0 kg
03 kg
Source: Shepon et al. (2016); FAO (2025)

CIRCULARITY HELPS, BUT CANNOT REPLACE DIETARY CHANGE

Circular bioeconomies can reduce food-feed competition by making greater use of food system by-products and residuals.20 21 However, the potential of circularity is constrained by the scale of livestock in the system. In Europe, for example, evidence suggests that scaling down livestock production, and thus the volume of recycled biomass needed for feed, is crucial to achieve greater resource savings under a circular bioeconomy.22 23 At the global level, circularity can complement, but cannot replace, the need for dietary shifts if we want to achieve food security within the planetary boundaries outlined by the EAT-Lancet’s Planetary Health Diet.24

Transitioning to healthy diets could deliver food security within planetary boundaries

Increasing adoption of healthy diets, predominantly composed of fruit, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, with minimal amounts of foods high in unhealthy fats, salt, and sugar, will contribute to better food security.25 Increasing legume consumption in many regions could improve nutrition and environmental outcomes. They are rich in fiber and micronutrients, and restore soil health through nitrogen fixation.26

Though adherence to dietary guidelines remains low across nations globally, dietary patterns in the Global North in particular tend to include high animal-source food and insufficient consumption of legumes and vegetables.27 28 In the Global North, rebalancing protein consumption towards plant sources and increasing fiber intake are key priorities to increase population adherence to national dietary guidelines and decrease risk of obesity and common noncommunicable diseases.29 30 31 32

In Global South countries, there is a pressing need to identify sustainably produced protein sources that meet populations’ nutritional requirements. While indigenous crops face systemic hurdles, such as underfunded research and informal seed systems, they offer a promising path toward food security and sovereignty.33 As the FAO underscores, many indigenous crops are high-protein, climate-resilient assets with significant commercial potential.34 With targeted investment, traditional and indigenous varieties could become powerful drivers of national food security and sustainable economic growth, as with lentils in India or pigeon peas in Kenya.35

Global adoption of healthy diets could reduce food system emissions, putting 1.5°C in reach; prevent over 40,000 premature deaths per day; and improve food security within planetary boundaries.36 37 38 39 In addition to food security improvements, other health, environmental, and resource-use co-benefits are estimated to be most pronounced where net reliance on livestock production is significantly reduced.40 41

The combined pay-off of a global shift to healthy diets
1.5°C
brought back within reach by cutting food-system emissions
40,000+
premature deaths prevented every day
Source: Clark et al. (2020); EAT-Lancet (2025)

Diversifying food production strengthens resilience to shocks

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2026 ranks extreme weather and biodiversity loss as the top two most severe long-term global risks.42

Serious bidirectional effects between global food production and the environment can worsen food insecurity.43 Intensive monocultural production systems – those focused on high input use and density per unit of land – can compound environmental pressures that, in turn, harm agricultural productivity and livelihoods.44 This is especially true when it comes to climate change and biodiversity loss.45 46 In some systems, responding to these productivity losses with further intensification or increased inputs can reinforce the underlying environmental pressures and create an ‘intensification trap.’47

Intensive production systems drive biodiversity loss globally, especially where forests and other high-value ecosystems are cleared for pasture or feed.48 49 Biodiversity loss undermines resilience to food system shocks and contributes to food insecurity, especially in the Global South where land-use change is primarily driven by export markets, including to satisfy demand from affluent countries.50 51 In turn, biodiversity loss can undermine ecosystem services that food systems depend on, like pollination, soil fertility, and water and climate regulation.52 These issues disproportionately affect farming communities, which rely heavily on natural resources.

Climate change has had net-negative impacts on food production, availability, accessibility, and stability.53 Climate change could reduce global staple-crop production by 6% by 2050 and 12% by century’s end under moderate emissions, with larger losses under high emissions.54 Intensive agriculture, especially ruminant livestock production, contributes greatly to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.55 56 57 Excessive atmospheric GHGs cause more extreme weather events, which can, in turn, impact agricultural production. Floods, hurricanes, drought, and marine heatwaves cause immediate losses of crops and animals.58 Extreme weather events can also disrupt food distribution and decrease household budgets for food purchases.59 Rather than solving the food insecurity problem, intensive agriculture creates a negative feedback loop that exacerbates pressures on food systems.

Projected loss in global staple-crop production
under a moderate-emissions scenario
−6%
by 2050
−12%
by century’s end
Two scenario estimates, shown as milestones, not a continuous trend.
Source: Hultgren et al. (2025)

POLLINATORS UNDER PRESSURE

Habitat loss, agricultural intensification, and climate change are leading contributors to declines in pollinator populations, threatening crucial ecosystem services, agricultural production, and economies.60 61

A narrow crop base is a fragile one

Nine species, two thirds of global crop production

Global food systems have become heavily dependent on a limited diversity of crops and livestock, which increases vulnerability to climate and other shocks.62 Historically, more than 6,000 plant species have been cultivated for food, yet fewer than 200 make major contributions to food production, and just nine plant species account for 66% of global crop production.63 Climate change and extreme weather events can disrupt production and food supply chains, and threaten crop diversity, worsening food insecurity.64 65 66

Funnel from more than 6,000 cultivated plant species, to fewer than 200 major contributors, to just nine species that account for 66% of global crop production.

Crop diversification can improve food security by strengthening resilience, as different species, varieties, and breeds have unique characteristics making them more or less resilient to variations in rainfall, temperature, or crop diseases.67 68 69 There is also a positive link between crop diversity and improved dietary diversity and reduced hidden hunger.70

CASE STUDY

Diversification in Mali and across Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of undernourishment in the world; over 22% of the population (more than 282 million people) is undernourished.71 This region is also particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on food security. Increasing grain legume production can strengthen food security in sub-Saharan Africa by withstanding climate stress, adding natural nitrogen to the soil, and dramatically increasing protein production as yield gaps close.72

An initiative led by the Ministry of Agriculture in Mali gave farmers improved access to a variety of local seed species with different traits and growing cycles, including millet, sorghum, fonio and cowpea, jute mallow and leaf amaranth.73 This resulted in improved seed and food security and climate change adaptation, and informed Mali’s agricultural development policy, which is now focused on diversification.

The Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) reports helping deliver 624 bean varieties across 31 African countries since 1995.74 More than five million households across 10 countries have seen a 30% increase in their income as a result. Farmers who grow, eat, and sell these beans are 6% more likely to be food secure and 6% less likely to live below the poverty line.75 76

CASE STUDY
30 years of the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance
624
bean varieties delivered
31
African countries
5m
households reached
+30%
household income
+6%
more likely to be food-secure
Source: PABRA (2025); CNN (2023)

To ensure global food security, countries need to enable citizens to adopt healthy, sustainable diets. Increasing or intensifying food production alone, without addressing the entire food system, is not sufficient to feed a global population with nutritious food while staying within planetary boundaries. Instead, safeguarding food security and improving sustainability outcomes requires coherent policies across countries and regions that promote a holistic approach to transform agri-food systems, from production to consumption.

While transforming our food system to improve food security, nutrition, sustainability, and economic outcomes requires action from all actors, governments and policymakers have a critical role to play. Concrete and effective policy levers are available today and should be urgently implemented:

Recommendations for policymakers

1

Account for healthy sustainable diets in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Dietary shifts remain poorly integrated into national climate plans, with only around a quarter of NDC 3.0 submissions (30 of 116) including diet-related measures.77 Yet evidence by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that “[c]onsumption of healthy and sustainable diets presents major opportunities for reducing GHG emissions from food systems and improving health outcomes,” while also contributing to adaptation.78 It is crucial that more NDCs account for national diets to provide a full picture of a country’s impacts.

Resource

Our Diets Toolkit provides a practical step-by-step guide for policymakers to integrate healthy and sustainable diets into their climate and biodiversity strategies.

2

Redirect subsidies to healthy, sustainably-produced food. The hidden social, environmental, and health costs of the food system equate to $11.6 trillion globally.79 87% of agricultural support is price-distorting and environmentally and socially harmful, according to the FAO and the United Nations (UN).80 Redirecting agriculture subsidies to healthy sustainable foods, especially legumes and nuts, could increase consumption by up to 10%, improve health, and lower emissions.81 Subsidies should be repurposed to incentivize the production of healthy, sustainable food, including plant-based proteins.

3

Dedicate more climate financing to food. While public climate finance rose between 2017 and 2022, the amount going to food systems decreased from 3% to 2.5%, and only 1.5% went to sustainable food systems.82 Given the urgency of transforming our food system to achieve a 1.5°C-aligned future, more climate finance should be dedicated to food, including research and development of climate-smart crops and plant-based foods.

4

Update Food-based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) in line with the latest science on sustainable, healthy diets, and increase uptake. Following current FBDGs offers only limited environmental benefits, since most do not adequately account for sustainability.83 84 National FBDGs should account for sustainability as well as nutrition, as recommended by the FAO and the World Health Organization (WHO).85 Adherence to FBDGs globally is low.86 Governments should implement evidence-based policies to increase population adherence to FBDGs that promote sustainable, healthy diets.

Food security on the multilateral agenda

Policies that improve food security can be strengthened at the national level but also shaped by decisions and initiatives at the multilateral level. The role of food security and sustainable agriculture is explicitly recognized under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Paris Agreement formally acknowledges “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, and the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems to the adverse impacts of climate change.”87 Countries have pursued issues related to agriculture as part of the formal climate agenda since 2017, with a workshop in 2025 dedicated to Systemic and holistic approaches to implementation of climate action on agriculture, food systems (this does not preclude other approaches) and food security, understanding, cooperation and integration into plans.

Moving forward, countries need to continue building a common understanding of food systems and their relevance to climate action on agriculture and food security, taking into account national circumstances, needs, and priorities. Implementation is becoming critical, yet means of implementation remain inadequate. Therefore, priority should be given to actionable, effective, and coherent policy pathways that maximize synergies. Examples from different global regions demonstrating systemic, holistic, and inclusive approaches could serve as proof-of-concept and help mobilize policy, technical, and financial support at the international and regional level for agriculture and food systems to deliver food security, health, economic wellbeing, and resilience.

Frequently asked questions

No. We already produce enough food for a growing global population, yet one-third is lost or wasted and food systems oversupply animal products while undersupplying plant foods. Food security depends on how food is produced, distributed, priced, accessed and consumed — not on output alone.88

About one-third of all food produced is never eaten: 13.2% is lost before reaching retail and 19% is wasted at retail and consumption. Cutting these losses frees up food and resources without expanding farmland.89 90

On average only 8% of livestock feed protein becomes edible animal protein. Producing 1 kg of edible protein takes about 2.1 kg of human-edible feed protein for poultry, rising to 3 kg for cereal-fed beef. Eating plants directly feeds far more people.91 92

Under a fully plant-based scenario, today’s agricultural land could support around 17 billion people. Yet 80% of farmland is used for animal-source food and 40% of cropland grows livestock feed, so most land does not feed people directly.93 94

Yes. A global shift to healthy diets rich in vegetables, legumes and whole grains could bring 1.5°C within reach, prevent over 40,000 premature deaths per day, and help to deliver food security within planetary boundaries.95 96 97

Just nine plant species provide 66% of global crop production, leaving food systems exposed to climate and disease shocks. Diversifying crops strengthens resilience and improves dietary diversity, reducing hidden hunger.98 99 100

Four levers: account for healthy, sustainable diets in national climate plans (NDCs); redirect harmful farm subsidies to healthy, sustainable food; dedicate more climate finance to food; and update dietary guidelines for sustainability and nutrition.101 102

About this brief

This policy brief was developed by ProVeg International. Sources are listed in the footnotes. For more information, contact [email protected].

The graphics in this brief were produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by ProVeg International.

References

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