Food systems

What are food systems?

Food systems are the networks needed to produce and transform food, and ensure it reaches consumers.

Improving the performance and resilience of global food systems, and their ability to cater for all who rely on them, will be key to reaching zero hunger.

Why are food systems not working?

A toxic mix of factors mean food systems are not meeting the needs of large sections of society, as shown by the fact that up to 783 million people are chronically hungry across the world.

Conflict forces people from their land and wrecks agriculture and infrastructure – blighting food production and distribution, severely disrupting markets and driving up prices. At the same time, unsustainable management of natural resources reduces the world’s capacity to produce food and exacerbates the impact of climate shocks. Up to 40 percent of the world’s land is degraded, with a serious impact on food production.

Major disruptions in global markets have highlighted vulnerabilities and inequalities in recent years. Low-income countries devote over a third of their merchandise export revenue to food imports, more than five times that of developed economies. This makes them extremely vulnerable when shocks such as COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine damage the supply of goods – disproportionally affecting their food security and reversing development gains. 

What other factors are behind failing food systems?

Most hungry, poor people are isolated – geographically, economically, socially and politically – and hard to reach. Even when nutritious food is available, it is often too expensive. When crops fail, or between harvests, poor families lack the resources to meet their food needs. They are forced to eat less, and less nutritious, food.

Even in a plentiful harvest, inadequate capacity to store, market and transport food means farmers cannot sell for the best price when demand is highest, food is wasted and spoiled, and market volatility is sharpened.

These issues tend to affect women more, partly because they may already have more limited involvement in food markets, and may be excluded from decision-making processes.

What is WFP’s role in transforming food systems to help end hunger?

Our experience of buying and distributing food in over 100 countries means we are well placed to help overcome the challenges facing food systems and to make them more sustainable.

Our partnerships, programmes and capacities stretch across food systems, and are especially strong at the stage where food is transported, stored, handled, processed, wholesaled and retailed.

We train smallholder farmers in areas including good agricultural practices, post-harvest management, and business and marketing skills. We also connect them to input suppliers, financial service providers and buyers of their produce, including increased opportunities for connections in urban areas where the majority of people now live.    

We place emphasis on sourcing food locally, from general food assistance to our school meals. This increases production for farmers, boosts supply and demand, and adds to agro-biodiversity. This all helps to regenerate local food systems. WFP is the largest cash provider in the humanitarian community. This increases people’s spending power and further stimulates local markets.

Among other activities, fortification helps communities access locally produced, nutritious food, while the creation and rehabilitation of infrastructure in exchange for food or cash-based assistance can include production, storage and transport facilities. We further work with governments in strengthening public food reserves.